By: Hermann Welm
Lucky Sandhu, aka “Can Do Sandhu,” opened the meeting by reminding us that the R.I. President is Ian H.S. Riseley, of Victoria, Australia, and his theme for the year is “Rotary, Making a Difference.”
Our Greeter, Terry Koehne -- yes, he is still in our Club! -- , led us in the
Salute to the Flag and gave us his
Thought for the Day, by Dale Carnegie, “If you want to win friends, make it a point to remember them. If you remember my name, you pay me a subtle compliment; you indicate that I have made an impression on you. Remember my name and you add to my feeling of importance.” Terry is the Public Affairs Director for the Contra Costa County Office of Education; he was formerly doing the same job for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, where he was on call to respond to press inquiries about every stubbed toe in over 30 schools! It must be a relief to work the PR Game for an entity that nobody knows about! (Well, the Teachers’ Unions know about it, but they NEVER cause any grief!).
Don Jones then led the group in the singing the Patriotic Song, “God Bless America!”
Visiting Rotarians: None.
Other Visitors: Will Harlan, son of Dr. Bill, who works for the State of Alaska, responsible for the “inspection of all things mechanical;” Erin Greenawalt, Dr. Bill’s granddaughter, and author of her first Online Book; Cal High Interact’s 2017/18 Board of Directors: Jessica Yuan (President), Heidi Kwong (Co-Vice President), Swetha Sankar Co-Vice President), Amanda Li (Projects), Jillian Weber (Fundraising), Liam Siu (Webmaster), Michaela Haynes (Membership), Nishitha Gouravelli (Fundraising), Conner Jow (Treasurer) and Justin Wong (Videographer) and Maulik Shyani.
Announcements:
Good News/Fine Free: None
Recognitions: Terry and Christine Koehne for their 24th Anniversary on June 19th; Pat and Ann Paterson for their 61st Anniversary on June 21st; and Jay Tontz for his July 20th Birthday!
Program:
“Can Do” Sandhu gave a quick overview of this year’s Rotary International Convention in Atlanta and noted that he was accompanied by his daughter, Chia, who celebrated her 13th Birthday at the meeting. He then asked Ana Dominguez, Colette Lay and Kathy Gailey to come up and share some of their impressions with the members.
Ana attended because her father was a speaker at the convention. He has been a Rotarian for 70 years, as had his father, Ana’s grandfather. In 1948, while studying at the University of Illinois, he received the first Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship. He had many great experiences and was invited to work at the United Nations. He spoke at the Conventional about how to keep Rotary Alumni involved in the organization.
Colette went because it was the 100th Anniversary of The Rotary Foundation, which has donated $3.7 Billion to programs all over the world since its founding. She was impressed by the thousands of Rotarians attending and the fabulous reception they got from the City of Atlanta. Roughly 40,000 to 45,000 Rotarians and spouses attended!
Kathy was particularly impressed by the House of Friendship, a giant hall in which hundreds of booths are set up by various clubs from all over the world. Many of them provide information about initiatives being worked on in their countries and offer other clubs an opportunity to participate in them. One of Kathy’s highlights at the convention was that she got an opportunity to meet, face to face, her former host for a 4-week trip to Ethiopia. While she had been staying in touch with Sammy over the Internet, this was their first meeting since that trip.
Lucky ended the program by commenting how this trip to Atlanta has really served to “engage” him in Rotary! And, he mentioned that next year it will be held in Toronto, Canada, another easy and interesting destination for us Californians.
Raffle: The Greeter’s Gift, a bottle of wine, was won by Don Jones, and the opportunity to draw that gold marble was won by Terry Koehne. Needles to say, with the raffle starting all over again after Marco’s untimely drawing of the gold marble last week, Terry didn’t have a chance! So he walked off with only $10. The prize next week will be $60.00!
Next Week’s Program: Nancy Kreiser, Senior Branch Manager, will talk about the programs and services available at the Dougherty Station and San Ramon Libraries. Our Greater will be Stacy Litteral.