By: Tom Port
Opener: A smartly suited Lucky Sandhu took the podium and announced International President is Ian H. S. Riseley and his theme is “Rotary, Making a Difference”.
Our scheduled Greeter John Tatum being AWOL, Dennis Harvey rushed to fill the breach and reminded us we Rotarians are a big family, we work together and care about each other. Let’s all say hello to the person next to us. And we all did. It was not hard to find someone as we are all crammed together in the mini lunch room.
Patriotic Song: Mike Thelen led us in “God Bless America”.
Introductions: We were pleased to see our old friend Carolyn Degnan. Kathereen Richardson, Gobind Anaid were welcomed as potential recruits. Colette introduced her daughter McKenna who has recently won a martial arts tournament in Germany.
Lucky also introduced his uncle, C.K. Sirinivas, who is visiting from the Rotary club of Bombay, India which has 350 members.
Announcements:
Tree Lot: Our annual Tree Lot starts November 22. There is still one spot to fill for the first week. After that there are a number of openings so members should visit the website and sign up.
Holiday Party, December 2. Brent Tucker has sent out invitations. There will be some parking for the disabled by his home, but most will need to park down below and take the van up the hill.
Annual Collection of Coats for the homeless. The club will join in this effort and will accept coats of all sizes and for both sexes. The drive will extend up to January 8.
On-Line auction: Our 2017 auction raised over $90,000.
The Rotary Foundation: Ray Giles advised you can donate to the Foundation by writing a check to “The Rotary Foundation’. You can ask Jeff Disch to bill you, or you can go on their website and pay on line either as a one time contribution, or on a monthly basis.
“’Student’” of the Month”: Colette Lay introduced Principal Sarah Cranford who explained the “student” of this month would be three adults. It seems a student had a seizure during a swimming event at Cal. High and P. E. teacher Lenard Mathews was able to rescue her. Life Guard Alyssa Arno successfully performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Guest Speaker: Tony Schomehl, a Past President of Moraga Rotary, is a docent at the USS Hornet museum in Alameda California. Tony served five years as a Navy pilot and followed that with a career as a professional airline pilot and flight instructor.
He explained there have been a total of eight ships named “Hornet” in the U.S. Navy but only two were aircraft carriers. The first, VC-8, only lasted about a year. It was sunk by U.S. forces after being heavily damaged early in the war with Japan. However, by that time it had served honorably as the ship that supported the Doolittle raid against Tokyo and other Japanese cities. The bombers were so large they had to be transported above deck. As thee took off they had only 6 feet of clearance between the ends of their wings and the “island”, the control center above the flight deck of the ship.
The next aircraft carrier named Hornet was CV-12. It fought in 59 major engagements and the airrcraft that flew from its decks claimed 1400 victories. At the battle of Midway four Japanese carriers were destroyed and this turned the tide of the war. After tangling with a typhoon the front 26 feet of flight deck were bent upwards and ship returned to California for repair. By the time it was again ready for action the war was over. It served in the Viet Nam war at Yankee station and picked up capsules after the splashdowns of Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions. The ship was finally scheduled for demolition, but was saved at the last minute and was instead towed to Alameda where it remains to this day as a ship museum. It served as an event center and educational resource. There are 18 full time staff and numerous part time staff and volunteers.
Raffle: Colette Lay won the Greeter’s Gift and Norbert won a shot at the Progressive. However, he drew a blue ball, so the plot thickens.
