Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show April 17 2014

On yet another lovely Spring Thursday, arriving Los Altos Rotarians worked their way past the "Red Packers," (Red Badgers selling their emergency backpacks), and then were greeted by BOB ADAMS, LOUIS BOREL, and SALLY MEADOWS.  Promptly at 12:15 PM, Pres. JACK KELLY called to order "the finest Rotary Club in the land." JACK called on PAT FARRELL to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. JEANNE MACVICAR, the song master, lamented the paucity of rain these days, and led us in the song "April showers."  KATHY LERA had the Easter Thought for the Day, "Wishing you warm smiles, bright flowers, warm sunshine and lots of happiness."

President-elect KENDRA GJERSETH stepped up to the podium and called on visiting Rotarians, but today we had none. Then KENDRA called on Rotarians with guests, and struck out again. So KENDRA announced that next week's speaker will be Prof. William Meredith, Director of Beethoven studies at San Jose State University.  KENDRA announced that "Rotary U" is coming up on May 14. This will be an educational evening for  all future presidents, officers and new Rotarians. Its theme will be an introduction to "the magic of Rotary international." The club will be paying your way if you would like to attend.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

TRACIE MURRAY, our club secretary, stepped forward to remind us that there is a participation requirement and members who miss a meeting should do a makeup. You have a two week window before and after you miss meeting to do a makeup, but TRACIE reminded us that you must get the information to her in a timely fashion.

ALLART LICHTENBERG then decided to turn his announcement into a 10-minute talk, and announced that the World Community Service committee will be meeting next Tuesday, April 22, at First Republic Bank, to cover the many existing and new projects of the committee. ALLART mentioned many of the ongoing projects, including the solar energy product in Nepal, and a new Child AIDS Prevention program, also beginning in Nepal. ALLART announced thatWCS will have a raffle coming up, and courtesy of ROY JONES, the winning prizes include three nights in Hawaii and three nights in Phoenix.

MIKE ELLERIN, reminded us that the Red Badge project is continuing, and emergency backpacks are available after the meeting.

JERRY MOISON demonstrated the expanse of his fading memory by reminding the club that two people had given him money to purchase the book on Silicon Valley from the meeting a few weeks ago. JERRY could not remember the second person so he invited everybody in the club to ask him for a book.

MARY PROCHNOW stepped up to again remind us that the Club is putting together a scholarship program at Los Altos High School in honor of DUDE ANGIUS and the high school gym dedication in honor of DUDE is coming up and a couple of weeks.

SANDY WHIPPLE, Club Treasurer, pointed out that the Club budget is available online and people should look it over. There will be a necessary dues increase this year to cover the additional expenses that the club is incurring on a regular basis.

STEVE POMEROY reminded club that the Rotary AIDS Project meeting will be taking place at First Republic Bank after the meeting today.

Pres. JACK KELLY made a special announcement that was not technically Rotary related. The Los Altos Kiwanis Club is sponsoring a Special Olympics on the first day of our Art Show (May 17). Even though many of us will be busy doing our TWO jobs during the show, the Kiwanis could use some help on their Special Olympics.

Speaking of the Art Show, FRANK ELMER announced that he was sending out e-mails to all Club members concerning the job assignments for the art show. Check your email to determine which assignments you have, and let FRANK know immediately if there is a problem or a conflict. You can also sign up for open jobs at the Club website.

ROTARY GLOBAL GRANT.

RICH CASEY announced that the Rotary AID'S Project for Child AIDS Prevention in Liberia had received a Rotary Foundation grant in the amount of $192,500. RAP added $40,000 to this, to begin the Liberia project in partnership with Save The Children in Africa.  RICH explained that obtaining the grant took a tremendous amount of work over the course of a year, but now even more additional hard work begins. We are partnering with Save The Children, the largest non-profit operating in Africa, and RICH and MARLENE COWAN are traveling to Washington DC to begin working out the project requirements. We need additional volunteers to go to Rotary clubs throughout Northern California to inform them of the project. As RICH explained, in his many trips to the various clubs throughout our district, people are energized by the notion that we plan to completely eliminate child AIDS transmission throughout Liberia. The next step is we will be trying to raise $1-$2 million from large corporations and foundations. We also need database development, and people to man booths at the Art Show and PETS.

MEMBERSHIP

Membership Director JEAN MORDO had a big agenda today.  First, JEAN announced that ROYCE CABLAYAN had completed his red badge duties in almost record time, and was being awarded his blue badge.  JEAN also inducted three new Red Badge members into the Club, KATHLEEN NICKOLLS, BOB SUTIS, and  PHIL SHEMANSKi.

10-MINUTE TALK

CINDY BOGARD O'GORMAN gave her 10-minute talk. She hails from Omaha Nebraska with grandparents coming from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Her dad was in the computer industry and that brought the family to San Mateo. She attended St. Simons grade school and Gunn High School locally. In her younger days she worked in Los Altos for Walt Singer at the stationery store and she also knew Steve Angius. She went to school at UCLA, then married and moved to Valley Forge Pennsylvania. Over the course of years, her family moved throughout the East Coast. She's was married in 1984 and has two children, Sean and Connor (one natural, one adopted.) After over 20  years of marriage, her husband passed away in August 2007. He was an enthusiastic hockey player and coached over 30 youth teams.  After he passed away, the local hockey league initiated a Memorial tournament in his honor.  In 2012, Cindy and  her sons moved back to Mountain View. She is now in her fourth profession, starting out as a waitress, moving to social services, then a long stint in public relations and now working in real estate with Alain Pinel.

CRYSTA CLEAR FINES

President JACK KELLY called up his Fine Mistress (need to work on that wording Jack), CRYSTA KRAMES, who lamented that her time was short and she had to move quickly.  SHELLEY EMERSON volunteered $20 in honor of her new granddaughter. AL TRAFICANTI discovered that he still had $100 left after he paid his taxes, so he joined the President’s Club. JEAN MORDO stated that he had just purchased a new condominium in town, and joined the President’s Club . JEANNE MACVICAR put in $30 to announce that her daughter, who has been fighting cancer, amazingly was beginning a new teaching job.  DIANA NEIMAN volunteered $40 to announce that her daughter was accepted to play flute at Bard College.  BRIAN WARD announced that the San Jose Opera would be putting on Don Giovanni in two weeks, and Brian paid $40. CRYSTA called on BONNIE BURDETT, who paid $20 in honor of her granddaughter Cassidy's first birthday. CRYSTA  then called on STEVE SHEPPARD for a report on how our golf team did at the District Conference. STEVE proudly pointed out that the team had finished in a spectacular tie for eighth place. He did mention that MIKE SPENCE holed a 45-foot putt for eagle. DEBORAH PENDER joined President’s Club in honor of her moms 90th birthday. CRYSTA then left the podium after a highly effective few minutes.

THE WEEKLY PROGRAM.

DUANNI HURD announced this week's speaker, Lisa Hendrickson of the on Avenidas Village. As Lisa pointed out, Avenidas is at the forefront of a growing movement across the country known as "aging in place," which seeks to support the elderly as they age at home. Avenidas has 6200 clients. These are people who joined to try to live at home in their elder years. Avenidas  is a public-private partnership with the city of Palo Alto, and has 30 employees and over 500 volunteers. The local of Avenidas location is a bit different from many of the village programs, because it provides the equivalent of adult day care, where the elderly can stay the day and then go home in the evening. Ms. Hendrickson pointed out that Avenidas is part of a growing movement known as the village to village movement, with over 120 villages throughout the country and 200 in development. The villages are not a place that people stay, but rather a membership organization that coordinates support services. It provides screening of vendors who can perform in-home services. The village also develops social and educational opportunities includes being health and wellness activities. The various villages provide member to member assistance. The goal is to provide a network of nonmedical services for all of the people who are choosing to live at home. There are a large number of emerging villages throughout the country, including many in Northern California such as Foster City and San Francisco.

At the end of Ms. Hendrickson's very informative talk, Pres. JACK chimed the meeting to a close at 1:30 PM.

Dr. William Meredith is the founding director of Beethoven Studies at San José State University and is a Professor in the School of Music and Dance.

He is co-director of the Beethoven Bibliography Project, the first computer-based bibliography of Beethoven materials ever assembled, and a co- editor of the acclaimed Beethoven Journal. He is also currently working on a four-volume set of the first complete English-language edition of the German reviews of Beethoven’s music from the 1780s to 1830.

Recently he helped create the internationally-praised exhibit “Schulz’s Beethoven, Schroeder’s Muse” with the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, which featured over 50 of the more than 300 Peanuts cartoons featuring Beethoven. That exhibit is now available online on the website of The American Beethoven Society.