By: Priya Jhingan

Mike Thelen was our greeter today, and welcomed everyone with a warm smile. He presented two quotes to us as his thought of the day. The first, a quote from one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, brought the crowd to a chuckle: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” The second quote, drawing some more emotional sentiments from the crowd, went something like, “Good things only happen when we help each other.” Born and raised in Alameda, Mike and his wife have lived in their current home in San Ramon for 39 years. While his wife has fully embraced her recent retirement, Mike mentioned that he’s still getting used to his.

Guests, Announcements, Birthdays

After our patriotic song, God Bless America, we were introduced to Chris Gallagher’s guest Julie. Announcements included the mention of a celebrity appearance made by Horace Crawford, who was interviewed on KQED earlier that morning about the homeless. One question asked during the interview was, “Can we make a difference in the homeless?” Horace’s response, in true Rotarian fashion, was that we don’t have to try to change the world at once, but we can start by helping a few people. Horace mentioned that his work with the homeless has resulted in many friends he never thought he’d have. An article on Horace’s interview can be found here - see Myth #4.

Gary Sloan announced the continuation of Camp Royal and Camp Ventures, local youth entrepreneurial and leadership camps for which our club sponsors two students each every year. The sponsored students will be coming in to give a presentation. Chris Gallagher once again stole the spotlight in order to remind us all that he will be leading our Valentine’s Day program on Feb 14. This year, the day of the valentines actually falls on a Thursday, meaning we all get to spend this love-filled day with each other!

Upcoming birthdays mentioned at the meeting included mine, Priya Jhingan, on Feb 3. For my special day, which fell on Superbowl Sunday, I had a family lunch and also will be going on a snowboarding/skiing trip to South Lake Tahoe next weekend. I managed to get Gary Sloan in trouble (Yes! Goal of my life!) by mentioning the birthday of his lovely wife Barbara Sloan, which is on Feb 4. For this announcement, I was fined $25 while Gary was fined $50. It may have been mentioned that Barbara and I are planning a secret trip to Las Vegas to celebrate together. Sharing the birthday month of February include our greeter Mike Thelen (Feb 5), Dennis Garrison (Feb 7), and Patti Hennigan (Feb 11).

Edgardo Carrillo continued the announcements with the wonderful news that our club raised $5k to contribute to Paradise fire relief. He and Dennis Harvey planned a weekend trip to the Rotary Club of Paradise, and Edgardo mentioned how proud he is to be a Rotarian.

Lucky Sandhu seemed all too anxious to steal the mic and return to his days at the podium, as he introduced us to two very special guests to talk about Girls State, Harvalee Grimm and Shivani Kharbanda. As an honorary Rotarian who helped organize a Rotary speaker series at Cal High, Harvalee has been very actively involved in Girls State, which is a leadership program designed to increase awareness and knowledge of governmental processes while teaching young women about the duties, privileges, rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

Shivani, a Senior at Cal High, talked a little bit about herself and her experience participating in Girls State last year. Although Shivani was born in San Francisco, we found that her mom is actually from the same city in India where Lucky was born! While at Girls State, Shivani developed leadership and collaboration skills, helping to lobby at the Senate level and get 10 bills passed on pressing topics, such as prison reform and gun control. She also met some amazing and powerful fellow participants in the program, women who are changing the world at a young age. Girls State left Shivani with more appreciation for our country and the ones who defend it, as well as a heightened interest in Political Science.

To conclude, Lucky thanked our Foundation and Grants Committee for donating $625 to Girls State. Well done, Rotarians!

Program - Angie Maurer and Kim Nguyen, KidzSpeak

Marv Remmich presented the day’s speakers - two entrepreneurial women, Angie Maurer and Kim Ngyuen, who founded the nonprofit KidzSpeak, a public speaking program for children in grades 4-12 that incorporates emotional intelligence awareness and skills to help children thrive both in the classroom and beyond. Both nurses by training but experienced in public speaking, Angie and Kim talked about how they identified a gap in combining emotional intelligence with public speaking education for kids.

Consisting of two parts, technical and social/emotional, KidzSpeak educates kids to use technology in a smarter way and to embrace and practice the skills of face-to-face communication. An interesting fact mentioned was that fear of public speaking starts at age 11, so giving younger kids practice and comfort when getting up in front of an audience is a huge milestone in and of itself. Marv mentioned how amazed he was upon watching 6- and 7-year-old students of the program speak with confidence.

Raffle

To end the meeting, Geoff Disch had the winning ticket for the greeter’s prize, which was a bottle of red wine. He also had the winning ticket for a chance at the cumulative pot, but picked a blue marble. Interestingly, Geoff also had the winning ticket last time I wrote the Crow’s Call. Investigation, anyone? Happy February!