Redwood Empire Food Bank – 2nd Wednesday of the month.  The next one is October 1th – 5 PM – 7 PM

SRJC Rotaract Fundraiser – You can make your donations here: Click here to donatero

NOTE: Club Dark & Social – On the 5th Wednesday of a month, the Club is dark. There will be a social on the following Saturday each month, there is a 5th Wednesday.

For more details and additional events, see the Announcements and Such section below.

More socials, projects, & events coming soon!

Rotary Announcements

Membership: The board of directors has approved Jim Green for membership.

See the Announcements section below.

Editors Note: Matthew came to the meeting with the thought that it would be a normal meeting for him. He’d buy a losing raffle ticket, eat his $30 lunch, and maybe make fun of Robert for the heck of it. Instead, he was greeted by President Ann who threatened to fine him for using a second large plate last week (apparently we’re charged by the plate. Who knew?!) for dessert unless he agreed to write this week’s bulletin. Since Matthew is a cheap bastard, he agreed to write the bulletin under protest. And he promises to only use one large plate from now on.

Opening the Meeting

President Ann Gospe tried to kick off the meeting but like death and taxes, the one thing you can count on at a Rotary Club of Santa Rosa meeting is for the microphone not to work. This is a time honored tradition dating back to the Flamingo where the phrase “Can you hear me now?” is more than just a mobile phone ad.

At any rate, we finally got the mic working and Ann introduced Doug Landin who led the group through a rousing rendition of the pledge followed by everyone stumbling through the Four Way Test (maybe we should have a training on how to say this correctly. I have some thoughts.). Finally, Doug shared an opening thought by Chocolate Magnate Milton Snavely Hershey (you don’t see too many Snavely’s anymore. We should try and bring that name back) who was born on September 13, 1857. In addition to making mediocre chocolate, Hershey was a philanthropist as well. With that in mind, Doug shared that Hershey said, “We should deal with one another not as classes but as persons, as brothers. The more closely we work together, the more effectively we can contribute to the better health of all mankind.” Weirdly enough, he did not advocate giving the world a large Hershey Kiss. Seems like a missed opportunity.

Visiting Rotarians

Visiting Rotarian Doug Johnson from the *checks notes* Rotary Club of Santa Rosa made an appearance. It was not clear why Doug was visiting but it was good to see an old friend.

Guests

Tasia Robles Henderson introduced her guest, Nayeli, who is an office manager at a construction firm, a realtor, and was a rotoracter in middle school.

Jeanne Levin introduced Captain Sean Kelsey from the Salvation Army who may join the club.

Sunshine

Ginny Cannon said that all was sunny on her end and then looked menacingly out at the group, challenging us to contradict her. No one did. Yay for sunshine!

Opportunity Drawing

Laura Stephens was in charge of the drawing this week. She announced there were six marbles in the bag which made me chuckle because devoted readers of this bulletin will remember that last week (and the week before that) there were EIGHT marbles. Maybe we’re just catching up. At any rate, Laura had Nona pick the ticket and as the number was announced, everyone seemed caught off guard that we were doing the raffle and after several seconds of people pulling out their tickets to check them, Pistol Pete Lescure announced that he was the winner. Alas, he failed to pull the winning marble and had to settle for $10 – which President Ann immediately guilted him into donating it to Polio. Stay tuned for next week when we have an undetermined number of marbles.

Announcements

President Ann reminded us that the 4-Club social, hosted by the East-West Club, is Thursday evening (which will have already happened by the time you read this bulletin) at the Sonoma County museum. I’m sure a good time was had by all.

President Ann also reminded us to Save the Date for the Annual Meat Auction which will be at Kim Murphy’s “Party Pad” on October 15^th.

President Ann also reminded us that there are still opportunities to participate in Roseland Collegiate Prep’s and Roseland University Prep’s Career Days. See President Ann if you’re interested. I’m sure at least one of you has had an interesting career.

President Ann just wouldn’t stop talking. She next called our attention to the 20-30 Club’s “Burning Ham” fundraiser that will be held on September 23^rd at Penngrove Park from noon to 5pm. If you like eating pig, then this one is for you. (If you don’t then maybe wait for the “Burning Jam” fundraiser that will inevitably follow.) President Ann auctioned off a pair of tickets. Laura bid $100 and was about to get them when Julia Parranto bid $125. Laura then battled back with a bid of $150 before everyone realized they were bidding on ham. Kudos to Laura for buying the tickets and kudos to Julia for raising another $50!  Details can be found at: https://burningham2030club.com/

Speaking of Julia, she finally got Ann to stop talking along enough to remind us of the Stargazing Social/Fundraiser/BBQ will be held on October 4^th and will start at 4:30pm. She then asked for people to sign up. She did not tell us where to sign up so maybe just show up at her house that day (or ask her beforehand. That might be the better option).

Tasia invited club members to join the SRJC and Sonoma State Rotoract in a Suicide Prevention walk on September 23^rd at 9am. There was a link on the table to sign up but this bulletin writer forgot to pick it up so contact Tasia if you have questions or would like to participate.

Ray Giampoli let us know that the Pepperwood Reserve was screening a documentary called Rising from the Ashes on the same night as the 4-Club social, September 14th, from 7-8:30pm. Hopefully some of you went.

Recognitions

Rich Rossi was called out by President Ann for his Waves to Ride run where he raised $2500 for SPUV – The Society for the Preservation of Unpopular Vegetables. (Actually, they never revealed who Rich was raising money for so SPUV it is!). Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, Rich donated $50 to the club.

President Ann also called upon Julia and Rose as they emptied their next recently and took advantage of that occasion to vacation in the Chicago. It was at that point that Julia informed us that her daughter had an accident where she cut open the inside of her mouth and suddenly my meal of Rotary Surprise didn’t look so good. Thankfully, it seems she will make a full recovery and Julia is now $100 poorer as she donated $100 to the club.

John Poremba was the next victim who had the gall to travel around the world on a cruise ship. He spend 80 days traveling to so many countries that I couldn’t keep up. Some of the countries visited were Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Elbonia, Germany, the UK, France, Portugal, and Spain. (Okay, I made up Elbonia but admit it, you thought it was real, didn’t you?).  You could tell that John loved his trip. He loved it so much that he name dropped “My good friend, Henry Trione” and left us with a quote that I will be thinking about for a long time: “There aren’t any luggage racks on a Hearse.” There may not be luggage racks on a Hearse but there are a lot of ways to donate to Rotary. John chose to donate $100 to Maui relief and $100 to the Veterans Scholarship Fund.

President Ann then called on the seldom seen Doug Johnson and Doug informed us that after 20 months, he was still married! Looking at the faces of my fellow Rotarians, I could tell that I was not the only one surprised by this piece of information. Doug went on to tell us that life was good and, at age 65, he’s “living on house money.” At that age, anybody’s money would be a good thing, I’m thinking.

At this point, President Ann calls up Tasia to the front of the room to present her with her very own blue badge. Tasia earned that blue badge. Especially attending the Rotary Board Meeting where we didn’t have an agenda and we just winged it as best we could. It was fitting she got to see us at our absolute normal state.

Finally, Steve Olson got up and told us it was time for another Foundation Update. I hadn’t realized this is now a regular thing but Steve used the phrase, “As you might have figured out…” and I then had to chuckle because, no, I had not in fact, figured it out. At any rate he told us that the Sorensen-Chase Scholarship has grown and has already given out 5 scholarships at $2500 each. He then gave a pitch to create your own scholarship. Personally, I’m thinking of one day funding a scholarship to benefit future Handsome Non-Profit CEO’s.

Guest Speaker

Susan Nowacki then introduced Eric Johnston, Publisher and CEO of the Sonoma Media – owner of the Press Democrat and other publications. Eric then took the opportunity to tell a story about how Susan had emailed him about her missing newspapers. Having busted poor Susan, he went to the demise of local government interest. People don’t care about local politics and get their media from other sources. There are now news deserts where people don’t have access to local news and their communities are missing a watch dog to help keep local leaders accountable. Sonoma Media is locally owned and operated and they have now expanded into Napa after their publication stopped publishing every day. Eric went on to say that they are creating a Press Democrat Journalist Trust to help support local journalism in our community.

There were some questions by Pete Lescure, Peter Holinski, Steve Olson and Jeff Gospe. All were intelligent, insightful questions and I neglected to write down any of them. Oh well, at least I didn’t have to pay a fine.

Program Slides