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Los Altos Rotary Club

Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show

February 5, 2009

Rotary 2008-2009 theme
Writer: Paul Nyberg - Photographer: Steve Yarbrough - Editor:  Cindy Luedtke
This Thursday's Program:  Feb 12 2009 President Seth Manning Annual Meeting

Greeters Jerry Tomanek and Randy Gard             

President Seth clanged the meeting to order promptly at 12:15 p.m. JERRY MOISON led the Pledge of Allegiance, JOHN MCDONNELL tried to chase the clouds away with a Rotary rendition of "You Are My Sunshine." 

Jerry Moison John McDonnell Victoria Emmons

As the Thought for the Day, VICTORIA EMMONS reached “Down Under” for a quote from a RI convention in Australia that went;

Rotarians, as we go forward:
let us NOT be like pudding- stiff, stodgy, and hard to stir,
But more like cereal,
Fresh, Crisp and Ready to Serve


Surprisingly, we had only one visiting Rotarian today, and he was Dr. Robert Smithwick.  But Rotarians with guests made up for it by introducing at least ten guests.

Announcements from the podium went quickly: KATHRYN BERRY asked members to consider joining the Scholarship Committee; KENDRA GJERSETH announced that the March 5th regular lunch meeting will be held at Los Altos Golf and Country Club and that reservations are required; DICK HENNING pitched yet another Safari to South Africa to take place in the spring and summer this year for two groups of 8 persons.

PP MARLENE COWAN announced that she had received a phone call from a 27 year old Taiwanese Ambassadorial scholar, now graduated with a Master's degree in Marketing from Northwestern University, that she seeks a job at Intuit, Google, or a pharmaceutical company in marketing or communications. Marlene didn't personally know her, so she cannot vouch for her skills, but knowing that she had been selected for a Rotary Ambassadorial scholarship after having been selected to participate in a Rotary GSE team, she must be outstanding. Please contact Marlene Cowan if you can suggest a potential job opportunity for this student.

MIKE ABRAMS announced that The Los Altos Cultural Association and co-sponsor The Town Crier are presenting a local talent show, "Los Altos Live". Auditions will be held at the Garden House at Shoup Park on Feb. 21 from 9 till noon and 3:00 pm till 6:00 pm. Comedians, jugglers, singers and sword swallowers are all welcome to audition. The show itself will be held on March 7 at Eagle Theater at Los Altos High School. The show is a fundraiser for Los Altos High. The show will start at 7:00pm.  For information contact: MIKE ABRAMS.

DAN O'DONNELL sent around a sign-up sheet for March and April Rota-Care meal delivery.  By the end of the meeting, it was completely filled.  So thank you all for signing up.  It is always fun to deliver the food.  Everyone is so appreciative. 

Kathy Berry Kendra Gjerseth PP Dick Henning
Mike Abrams PP Marlene Cowan Dan O'Donnell

CLUB BYLAWS REVISION VOTE.  Shortly you will receive a ballot via email that asks you to vote on the various changes to our By Laws.  Either mark this ballot and email back to our Secretary, Steve Anderson; print out the ballot mark it up and bring it to the meeting, or pick up a ballot at the meeting this Thursday and vote.  Your Privilege, your Right, your Responsibility.

You can review the changes to the bylaws by looking at the marked up document on our website here.  You can print out the ballot from our website here (in case you didn't see the email.)  Marlis McAllister and Ester Ng


JOHN CARDOZA, membership honcho inducted ESTHER NG as our newest Red Badger.  She is sponsored by MARLIS MCALLISTER.

KAREN GESSERT charmed the crowd with her 10 minute talk. Born and raised in Los Altos, her story started at age two when she attempted a swan dive off a playground swing set, Karen Gessertsmashed her face and gave herself two noses.  Six years of plastic surgery repaired the damage.  After getting a degree from the University of Colorado/Boulder, she switched majors from anthropology to attend culinary school. Later finished with top grades in a sommelier program and today jointly owns and operates Vino 100 on Main Street Los Altos.

PP Mary Prochnow


MARY PROCHNOW eked a fair pot of cash with "recognitions" mainly testing members geographical IQ, as far as the central coast of California goes, anyway.   Fines ranged from $0 to $35 and were solicited from PAUL SCHUTZ, LARRY CHU, DAVE BERGMAN, FRANCES LAPOLL, TATYANA KANZAVELI, JOHN MCDONNELL, KAREN OWEN, PHIL ROSE, ESTHER NG, JOHN HAMMERSCHMIDT, DENNIS YOUNG, DICK DUHRING, DAN DUTTON, JERRY MOISON, and SAM PESNER.


Robert Freeman Today's program was introduced by JERRY MOISON who presented Robert Freeman, Los Altos High School Teacher of the Year, and his creative fund-raising program called One Dollar for Life aka ODFL.

ODFL helps American teenagers organize fundraisers in their schools where each student gives just one dollar. It then works with qualified Non-Governmental Organizations around the world to build small-scale infrastructure projects in the developing countries such as schools, water wells, health clinics, irrigation systems and sanitation systems. The donation is small, but the impact is huge!

ODFL is an IRS registered 501(c)3, non-profit corporation founded to address third world poverty by collecting just one dollar from each of millions of US high school students and then channeling those funds into small-scale infrastructure projects in developing countries.

However, there are ODFL examples that were not just for infrastructure projects.  Student efforts of one school bought 2 milk cows for an orphanage in Kenya, another donated hundreds of calculators and yet another, 300 bikes to Kenya. Robert Freeman
Illustrating how just a dollar per student can multiply, he ended his talk with an African Saying:  "Even the greatest waterfall starts with a drop of water."

 

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