DIGITAL EDITION No. 104 December 10, 2014 EDITOR: Sam Saunders PHOTOGRAPHER: Nicole Le
Club is dark Wednesday, December 24th
and
Wednesday, December 31st
Our Program for December 17th
THE REDWOOD CHORDSMEN
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
Wednesday, December 24th – CLUB IS DARK
Wednesday, December 31st – CLUB IS DARK
Wednesday, January 7th: Club Fellowship – Family Trivia
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
BIENVENIDO!!
Filling-in for President Mark, President Elect-Nominee José Guillén greeted the crowd with smiles and a hearty “Bienvenido.” The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Larry Miyano. The Rotary Moment was by Bill Hatcher, commenting that we were not asked what religion, if any, we followed when we joined Rotary. He provided a quote respecting a variety of religions. Today’s official greeters were Past President Steve Olson and Joy Parker. Chip Rawson and Kris Anderson were busy selling lunch tickets and Rich de Lambert collecting them.
VISITING ROTARIANS
According to Past President Fred Levin, there were no visiting Rotarians today!
GUESTS OF MEMBERS
Larry Miyano introduced his wife, Mary, and Rodrigo Betioli, one of our Rotary former exchange students from Rio de Janeiro (1995). We also welcomed Selene Lenox, a guest of Doug Roberts and Brett Shinn, a guest of Ryan Thomas. Ray Giampaoli introduced Dan Harris and Bill Hatcher hosted former club member, Jerry Marquis.
SUNSHINE REPORT
Eileen Carlisle brought the news that Pris Abercrombie, Jack’s wife, is at home, still recuperating from her foot surgery. Past President Kathleen Archer has been in sick bay, but is home and improving. Our best wishes to both for a quick recovery.
THE MAD MARBLE MATTER
AKA “The Raffle” was conducted by Bob Sorensen today. Eileen Carlisle held the winning ticket, but was unable to draw the winning marble. The $313 raffle pot will continue to grow (without hydroponics). Eileen is $10 richer after walking with the consolation prize.
ROTARIAN MAGAZINE QUESTION
Past President Debi Zaft asked the question: “Which American city has the best tasting tap water?” The answer was provided by Sam Adams. ‘Er, I mean Past President Will Haymaker and his brilliant guess was “Boston.” A mighty fine guess at that. It must be from the groundwater as it can’t be from the Charles River (remember “Dirty Water” by the Standells? circa 1966).
NEWEST MEMBER
On November 19th, we inducted our newest member into our club. Her name is Emily Harrington. Emily graduated from Ursuline HS as well as UC Santa Barbara. She is married to Kevin Harrington, a history teacher at Casa Grande HS in Petaluma. They are proud parents of two boys, Connor, nearly age 4 and Brady, age 18 months.
Emily’s dad, Dennis Crandall, is a former Rotarian being a member of the West Santa Rosa Club from 1992-1999. Emily was a Rotary exchange student in 1996, traveling to the Netherlands and continues to maintain a close relationship with her host family.
Recently, Emily was promoted from Assistant Vice President to Vice President at Summit State Bank. Take a moment to get to know this delightful, energetic new member. You will be glad you did.
PRESIDENT’S ANNOUNCEMENTS
Acting Pres Jose wasn’t singing “Jingle Bells” but maybe Emily Harrington is after Jose agreed to pay her $10 fine for promoting Emily’s company (Summit State Bank) with their Christmas bell sale ($1) as a way to fund Secret Santa requests (Volunteer Center/KZST) that may otherwise go unfulfilled. Jose proved he’s the real thing.
- We had two member resignations recently: Mykha’el Wilson and Matt Everson (ouch!), but the good news is that we also had four new members added to our ranks. No, it wasn’t an Oakland “A’s” baseball trade.
- Next week is our annual Christmas holiday meeting and all family members of Rotarians are invited to attend and enjoy the program. The a cappella group, The Redwood Chordsmen, will entertain our ears with festive holiday singing. Our own Dan Schell is a member of that talented group.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
Julia Parranto is asking for a few more good volunteer Salvation Army bell ringers this wee
Julia also reminded us that the Children’s Christmas Party is Saturday December 13 starting with the Nutcracker ballet performance at Spreckles Performing Arts Center. Extra volunteers would help a lot. See her for details.
Ted Wilmsen got his diction in synch and said that the dictionaries for the Club’s Dictionary Project will be arriving soon and he needs help with the distribution of the books at various elementary schools during the 3rd and 4th weeks of January. There will be sign-ups at next weeks’ meeting.
Past President Steve Olson gave a thorough description of the type of funds operated by our local Club Foundation (the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Foundation) and how our Foundation differs from the Rotary International Foundation which primarily promotes world-wide projects. Our Club Foundation supports the local community through financial grants and scholarships.
Our Club Foundation has $1.3 million of assets and it has been operating as an IRC Section
501( c)(3) (tax-exempt public charity) for 25 years with a 15-member Board of Trustees.
The Club Foundation manages mainly permanent endowment funds that are either restricted or unrestricted. Most of the restricted funds are named for the donors, such as the Spencer and Shirley Flournoy Memorial Engineering Scholarship Fund. Some of the endowment funds, like the John Brown Memorial Veterans Scholarship Fund, were funded by many donors. The Foundation solicits additional contributions to all of the endowment funds.
There are also several “pass-through” scholarship funds, notably the Joseph Dorfman Memorial Scholarship Fund (Ray Dorfman as donor) and the Holli Plummer Honorary Scholarship Fund (Debra Smith Dorfman as donor). The Club’s website has a page dedicated to our Club Foundation and it contains links with more information about our funds and scholarships. Check it out! And, you can conveniently donate through the Club’s website – if you do it before January 1, you will have an extra tax deduction for this year (if you itemize).
SHARING AND CARING
Acting President Jose is a kind soul and probably didn’t really want to extract money from these nice Rotarians. But, he DID !! Here’s the damage.
Nicole Le was grateful to have survived five years as a parent, with a 5-year old boy and a 2-year old girl. She may be wondering what the next 5 years is like (hmmm . . . ). She needs a break (hey, we all do, sooner or later) and has planned a trip to Tahoe followed by a vacation to Hawaii. For that she gave $150 to the John Brown Memorial Veterans Scholarship Fund of our Club Foundation. Thank you, Nicole! May the next 5 be even better than the first 5.
Sam McMillan went on a wet and wild (read rainy) U-Haul truck ride to Eugene, Oregon, to help a family friend move her belongings. He got more than he bargained for. For that leisurely ‘Chevy Chase’ style vacation, he gave up $100 to the Club Foundation’s Wes Jamison Memorial Ag Fund and $100 to his grandson’s Paul Harris Fellowship. Hip (sore), Hip (sore) Hooray !!
FEATURED PROGRAM
Our speaker was Jen Lewis of the Sonoma County Department of Health Services and she, along with our own Mike Kallhoff, presented a slide show featuring the results of a study that assessed the well- being of families living in Sonoma County.
The report was released in May of this year and the data underlying the report was from the 2010 U.S. census report. It was a demographic-driven report focused on three dynamics: health, education and income and how that impacts equality and equity of outcomes.
The report purports to arrive at a mathematical status of well-being based on an index value assigned to categories of health, knowledge and standard of living. Index values were tied to specific geographic regions of Sonoma County. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the maximum value, the index for the East Bennett Valley area of Santa Rosa was 8.47. In contrast, the index for the Roseland Creek area was 2.79.
The report contained a ton of statistics. Here are some of the main conclusions reached:
- Education was tied to health outcomes. The more educated population tends to live longer and better.
- Income was also tied to health. Having higher income generally meant one would have better health. This assertion was challenged by one Rotarian during the Q&A period. One may not be able to say that having an extra $10,000, for example, would cause one to have better health than someone with less income. There are many genetic and environmental factors that figure into one’s health status. 99% of students in Bennett Valley complete their high school education, while only 54% of students in the Roseland Creek area will graduate. This too was attributed to the disparity in income levels by region.
- The smoking rate among the younger people of Sonoma County is higher than the state-wide average. That also is an
indicator of health and tends to reduce the well-being index.
What’s next, after this report? Absorb the data and its impact, learn to improve health and well-being and promote opportunities for better community advocacy, volunteerism and action. The speaker said that the response to this study should be to find ways to bridge the ‘opportunity gap’ and foster workforce development and a higher ‘return on investment’ in terms of human well-being. A few examples were: to provide universal (affordable) pre-school education and a redoubling of effort to reduce smoking rates among our youth.
For more information, go to www.measureofamerica.org/SONOMA
THE BUTTON DOWN
Acting Pres Jose closed with this quote: “ Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great (Orison Marden).”
OFFICERS
Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Officers
President: Mark Burchill, President Elect: Jose Guillen, President Elect Nominee: Doug Johnson, Past President: Peggy Soberanis, Secretary: Jack Abercrombie, Treasurer: Cecil G. Humes, Sergeant at Arms: Jack Geary
President Rotary International
Gary C.K. Huang, member of the Rotary Club of Taipei, Taiwan
Governor, District 5130
Kevin Eisenberg, member of the Rotary Club of Calistoga
Attendance Secretary
Jack Abercrombie P.O. Box 505 Santa Rosa, CA 95402 707-538-4770
Board of Directors
Karen Ball, Tim Delaney, Debra Dorfman, Tim Fawcett, Bill Hatcher, John McHugh, Jack Tolin, Cathy Vicini