rosarian-header
DIGITAL EDITION   No. 36     July 10, 2013     EDITOR:  Layne Bowen     PHOTOGRAPHERS: Kris Anderson

Our Program For July 17th

THE STATE OF YOUR ROTARY CLUB

Speak up! Express yourself & have your say! Come and help direct the club’s future!

soberanis.peggyPresident Peggy Soberanis invites you to take the wheel. Accept her challenge to steer the oldest & largest Rotary Club in the North Bay! At this Wednesday’s meeting we look briefly at the strength of this club. Then devote the rest of the meeting to this year’s “Potential Opportunities” for growth & improvement. Should we take on more projects? Or less? What can we do to make our involvement in Rotary more beneficial to our families? How can we best follow-up on your feedback and tweak the club where it is needed. What would help our club take more action on your ideas and input?

Share your vision of what the final years of our club’s century should be. The state of our Rotary Club is fine. Now let us visualize where we want to be by the year 2021. Then go for it!

UPCOMING PROGRAMS….

July 24:  A close up of Santa Rosa’s Memorial Hospital
July 31:  Preview the San Francisco’s 49ers’ new stadium
Aug. 7:  The North Bay Angels’ Che Voight

 

USEFUL LINKS

Visit our district at: http://www.rotary5130.org
Check out Rotary International at: http://www.rotary.org
Come see us at: http://rotarymeansbusiness.com

OPENING CEREMONIES

A standing ovation welcomed our Rotary Club’s 93rd President as Peggy Soberanis began her Rotary year by letting us know that she’d be referring to our little assemblage as the “Finest” Rotary Club in District  5130 if not the world. Now we all are hoping that she means that in the finest sense, not the finest (Finiest?) sense of the word!

Manuela Gonzalez led us in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag and John McHugh expertly combined the invocation and the first of Rotary’s 4-Way Test:

            As Rotarians we have been given a gift. It is the Four Way Test. While many of us see the Test as an exercise in Integrity—which it is–it is so much more. It is a track to run on in our professional and personal relationships and it begins with a simple question:           

Is it the truth?

            We all see the world differently. My truth is not the same as yours. If we take time to understand someone else’s truth I believe we can open up lines of communication we never thought possible and solve problems we never thought we could solve; just by asking a simple question….Is it the truth?

OUR NEW PRESIDENT

In her opening statement, President Peggy emphasized that we will be building on the good work that has gone on before, Before we introduce our visiting Rotarians and guests I want to explain the decor and my theme for the year. I’ve chosen a construction theme since we are building on all the good works of the past 92 years. We are nearing our 100th Anniversary in 2021 and I wanted everyone to see each year as another building block adding to the strength and height of our Rotary Club’s edifice. On the foam boards you will see all the former club presidents’ names and the year of their leadership. I hope that this year our club will tweak our edifice and make it even better than it already is.”

Rotarian of the Month Jackie McMillan

Rotarian of the Month Jackie McMillan

ROTARIAN OF THE MONTH

One of our new president’s official acts was to announce the Rotarian of the Month. For those of have been paying attention—especially those of us up to our necks in Giro Bello—it was no surprise to hear that Jackie McMillan earned that honor several times over. Congratulations, Jackie. Well done!

VISITING ROTARIANS

We had one visiting Rotarian—Art Claxton, who came all the way from Surrey Guilford, in British Columbia. Art exchanged Rotary banners with President Peggy.

[divider_line type=”divider_blank” el_position=”first last”]

GUESTS OF ROTARIANS

Exchange student

1994  exchange student Rodrigo Bertoli with Mary & Larry Miyano

A number of guests made it to our little gathering, adding to the overflow crowd today: Past President Rich de Lambert introduced—for the last time (he was inducted into our Rotary Club today)—Brandon Uhrich. Past President Don McMillan welcomed back his guest, Eunice Valentine. Matt Everson’s guest was CA-CVengros, the development director of the non-profit SAY—Social Advocates for Youth, and Leah Tonsaki, guest of visiting Rotarian Art Claxton. Larry Miyano re-introduced to us his guest – and our 1994 exchange student – Rodrigo Bertoli and his lovely wife Mary.

Wayne Rowlands introduced his guests, Realtor Sonja Butler, and today’s guest speaker, Lynn Stauffer, Dean of Science and Technology at Sonoma State.

NEW MEMBERS!!

We’ve been referring to these two as “guests” for several weeks, but they have been officially inducted and we can now refer to them as fellow members of our historically-ancient Rotary Club of Santa Rosa—Carolyn Ivancovich, sponsored by Jack Abercrombie, and Brandon Uhrich, sponsored by Rich de Lambert. Welcome, to our newest Rotarians!

New Memebers

Jack Abercrombie, Carolyn Ivancovich, Peggy Soberanis, Brandon Uhrich and Rich de Lambert

Elizabeth Karbousky watches as Mike Kallhoff hopes for the winning card

Elizabeth Karbousky watches as Mike Kallhoff hopes for the winning card

RAFFLE

With $254 in the Rotary Jackpot and only 44 cards left in the bag, Red Badger Elizabeth Karbousky conducted the raffle in good order, reducing Mike Kallhoff’s luck to walking away with a measly $10. In Layne’s opinion: ”A four of clubs ain’t worth much these days, Mike!”

GIRO BELLO RECOGNITION

Doug Johnson was recognized for his skillful leadership resulting in last weekend’s successful Giro Bello fundraising event. This is the third year for what has become our club’s largest fundraiser and requires months of planning and preparation. Doug did a great job of herding the Rotary cats into a finely-tuned fundraising machine. The final numbers aren’t in yet, but we anticipate this year will equal last year’s fundraising amount. And the most gratifying news of all was how many of Doug’s fellow Rotarians volunteered to help, making Giro Bello another Rotary fellowship adventure,

Doug Johnson hawking Giro Bello wear

Doug Johnson hawking Giro Bello wear

AND LOTS OF SOUVENIRS!

Never one to pass up a sale, Doug Johnson presented some leftover items from Giro Bello that may still be purchased by club members including: the “Texas burnt-orange”   tee shirt, free to all volunteers, the steel blue Rotary souvenir shirts are $6 each and, most notably, the bright red & yellow official Giro Bello Rider’s Jersey is “priceless”. If you don’t have at least one of these, you can’t hang out with the really cool kids! All proceeds go directly into the Giro Bello bottom line, so buy yours now!

PRESIDENT PEGGY’S REALLY COOL SUMMER ADVENTURE!

President Peggy shared the stories of some the speakers she heard at the Rotary International Convention earlier this month in Portugal:

“Leymah Gbowee, from Liberia, Africa, who was a 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate for her non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”. She spoke of building community wherever you live, by looking out for one another.  She was taught that by her mother and grandmother in her village in Liberia, and she took that with her and taught others to do the same.

“Emmanuel, a young man from West Africa whose family was killed by a tribe of Muslims was kidnapped and trained to be a child soldier. He was 6 or 7 years old and his rifle stood taller than he. An English woman found him and took him away from there, adopted him, and provided him with an education. Emanuel developed a passion for peace and spends his life teaching peace to youth through rap music. It was energizing and inspiring to listen to his story.

“Craig Kilburger, now a young man of 30 who at the age of 12 saw in the newspaper in his Canadian home the story of a 12 year old Pakistani boy who was murdered because he chose to speak out for children’s rights. The 12-year-old Craig was outraged and wanted to do something about it. He begged his school-teacher parents to let him take a few months off from school to go to Pakistan and help the other young boy. Of course the answer was no (wasn’t even allowed to go alone on their local metro). He pestered his parents for three years to go help the youth in Pakistan until finally his mother told him that she didn’t want to hear any more about it until he had raised half the money needed, and could assure her he would be safe. So he targeted Rotary Clubs, speaking to local clubs and raising money for his dream. He contacted Rotarians who had contacts in Pakistan and other countries where he would be housed and cared for while he worked. This young man founded “Free the Children” and devotes his time and energy working on the issues that concern the rights of youth.

“Jane Goodall spoke of her work with chimpanzees, and her passion for preserving the environment. She is a soft spoken person but she still inspires. I had the pleasure of meeting her and getting her autograph.

“Polio! We heard the latest facts and figures on how close we actually are to eliminating polio from the world. We heard that the Gates Foundation is putting up more challenge money on a 2 to 1 match. Thanks to Middle Eastern donors who have given generously the challenge is already three-fourths achieved! Out of the new $5.5 billion challenge, we only have to raise $1.5 billion in the next six years to meet the challenge. In addition to the challenge, it is anticipated that it will take six additional years to finally eradicate polio from the last few areas in which it is endemic.

The New Vision from RI became effective on July 1st, we were reminded, and we are encouraged to collaborate with other Rotary Clubs to work on major issues like health, education, clean water and get larger funding from the district and internationally.”

President Peggy concluded, “I came away from the Convention very inspired to add my gifts to help build our club this year. I will be forever grateful for the wonderful experience and adventure I had before the convention as I vacationed with the Levins—Jeanne & Fred—in Southern Spain, Morocco-for-a-day, and in Lisbon. Thank you to Santa Rosa Rotary for my great adventure!”

“SPAYE-CIAL” RECOGNITION

President Peggy took another moment to recognize the contributions of Jackie McMillan for her sponsorship efforts for the Giro Bello.  Great job, Jackie!

SING IT WITH ME

NANANANANANA NA NA–You say it’s your birthday! NANANANANANA N NA—Happy Birthday to you!

(I take Blaine) Goodwin, Ray (Dorf on Golf) Dorfman, Kevin (not Corrick) Brown, Paul (not Alexander) Hamilton, Kim (Drop Kick) Murphy, Knoel (not Noel) Owen, and (the Grassy Knoll) Owen all had birthdays in the month of July. But wait, there’s more! In addition to those, John Berto, Casey D’Angelo, Deborah Gray and Dr. Barry Silberg also celebrated birthdays (though they chose to do it somewhere other than at Rotary). Editor Layne Bowen adds, “Speaking of the good doctor…this editor was riding his bike on the 3rd of July through the McDonald neighborhood and spotted Dr. S. in full surgical regalia mowing the lawn in the triangle at the intersection of Proctor & Park Way. It is nice to see that no matter how rich and well respected you are, you’re never too good to take on a menial second job for a little extra change!  What a great example for our young people!”

FINES AND RECOGNITIONS

golden-gate-bridge-june-28-2013-wayne-1

Wayne on top of the Golden Gate Bridge

Wayne Rowlands was fined for getting high on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Wait, that didn’t come out right!) Wayne was actually holding a Rotary Means Business meeting high atop the Golden Gate Bridge tower from which he took several mind-bending, stomach-churning photos, (while holding on for dear life)! Wayne generously contributed $50 to the Club and $50 to the Local Foundation for being allowed to express himself in the wide-open blue skies.

Jack Atkin and Roy Thylin were penalized for having an opinion and expressing it in The Press Democrat. Honestly, guys, it’s the Press Democrat! Did you really think anyone would listen? The cost of an opinion these days is $50 to the Club and $50 to some guy named Paul Harris.

EMPLOYER BEST PRACTICES AWARDS

The Sonoma County Mayors’ Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities invites you to submit an Employer Nomination for the 2013 Awards. The annual celebration will be held Wednesday morning, Oct. 30, 2013, at the Flamingo Resort & Spa at 7:30 am. For event registration & sponsorship information go to the website at www.sonomacountymayorscommittee.com.

Dr. Lynn Stauffer

Dr. Lynn Stauffer

PROGRAM

Today’s guest speaker was Dr. Lynn Stauffer, Dean of the Sonoma State University School of Science and Technology and a professor in the SSU Computer Science Department. Most of us were aware that SSU has grown over the past decades, but we were probably surprised to hear all of the changes, statistics, and superlatives—especially the physical growth in so many ways. It was truly mind-boggling. As we have been reminded so often about so many changes that it reached cliche’ status years ago:

“It’s not your father’s little college any more”. We probably should see it for ourselves.

PRESIDENT’S CLOSING STATEMENT

Peggy closed her first meeting as President of the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa with an appropriate quote from Pablo Picasso, “I am always doing that which I cannot in order that I may learn how to do it.”

OFFICERS

Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Officers

President: Peggy Soberanis, President Elect: Mark Burchill, President Elect Nominee: Jose Guillen, Past President: Bill Rousseau, Secretary: Jack Abercrombie, Treasurer: Cecil G. Humes, Sergeant at Arms: Jack Geary

President Rotary International

Ron D. Burton, member of the Rotary Club of Norman, Oklahoma, USA

Governor, District 5130

Helaine Campbell, Rotary Club of Sebastopol Sunrise

Attendance Secretary

Jack Abercrombie P.O. Box 505 Santa Rosa, CA 95402 707-538-4770

Board of Directors

Debra Dorfman, Matt Fannin, Doug Johnson, Nicole Le, Robert Pierce, Jack Tolin, Creed Wood, Cathy Vicini