Scribe Notes, January 11, 2018
President “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, Brent Tucker, led us in the Salute to the Flag. This Scribe was called upon to lead those assembled in the Patriotic Song, “My Country Tis of Thee.”
As his Thought for the Day, Brent spoke about his family’s history with Rotary.
His grandfather was Joe Thomas, who owned a spring company in San Francisco. He Joined SF Rotary, the second oldest club, after Chicago, around 1910. Brent wore his 1915 SF Rotary convention official gold ribbon badge and his wife, Terri, wore his grandmother’s 1915 ladies pin to our luncheon (pictures included herein). His dad served as President of the Hayward club, in 1952. Brent also wore his dad’s 1955 Rotary International Convention pin from the national conference celebrating 50 years of Rotary. Fifty years later Terri and Brent attended the Rotary’s 100th International Convention in Chicago and -- yes, you guessed it -- Brent wore that pin as well! Soooo, Brent was proudly displaying over 100 years of family Rotary history on his jacket.
Brent joined Rotary in 1971. His late brother, Stephen Tucker, an attorney, was also a long time Rotary member. He joined in 1968 and had perfect attendance until his recent passing. He served as Past President of the Santa Rosa and later Ventura clubs. So the Tuckers’ have a long, rich history with Rotary!
Visiting Rotarians: Kathy Chiverton of the Danville club.
Other Visitors: Ed Chiverton, Kathy’s husband; Taylor Lee and Justin Lee, former Cal High Interactors and now members of Cal Berkeley’s Rotoract Club; Heidi Lee, San Ramon Parks Commissioner; Gary Alpert, San Ramon Planning Commissioner; and Elisa Beltran, a Realtor with Keller Williams, in Danville.
Announcements:
PP Guy Greco noted that there was a two-page article in the December 25 edition of TIME Magazine about Rotary, entitled “Is 2018 the Year for Polio’s Extinction?”
President Sandhu invited Kathy and Ed Chiverton to come forward and explained how they -- first Kathy and then Ed as well -- have been deeply involved with community support for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. Kathy participated with the PTA, then served on the School Board, worked on School Bond elections, and on the Bond Oversight Committee. Both are now on the Board of the San Ramon Valley Education Fund (the “Ed Fund’). They came to thank the club for the significant contributions we have made to the Ed Fund, including CarboLoad, the Christmas Tree Lot and the Online Auction for Education. As a result, the Ed Fund’s Board has decided to name San Ramon Rotary as the Honoree at their April 2018 Annual Dinner. This will be the first time the Ed Fund has named an organization, rather than a person, as the Honoree!
Good News/Fine Free: Chris Gayler tried to sneak his wife’s birthday into this section of the meeting but was quickly moved to the “Recognitions” section by the very alert Can do Sandhu! About every third week PP John Tatum announces that another grandchild is on the way; today it is a grandson to be born in July. This is his eighth one; four girls and soon four boys!
Recognitions: Chris Gayler for his wife’s, Natalie’s, birthday, on Friday, the 15th.
Grant Presentation(s):
Justin and Taylor Lee came forward to receive a check from the San Ramon Rotary Foundation for the Cal, Berkeley Rotoract Club for their fundraising efforts for the PolioPlus Campaign. They mentioned that their generation has never encountered polio so a significant effort needs to be expended in explaining what it is and how horribly it impacted young people all over the world, including the United States. They noted that the world-wide incidence of polio is now in the “single digits” and that it is limited to the Tribal Regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, plus Nigeria.
Heidi Lee and Greg Alpert stepped forward to thank San Ramon Rotary for the financial assistance toward the purchase of “spinners” for San Ramon’s 150th Anniversary Celebrations in 2017. They were handed out at the “Culture in the Community” Celebration which included 25 booths, many of a “grassroots” nature, highlighting San Ramon’s cultural history. The several San Ramon Rotary clubs participated in funding these gifts.
Program:
Can Do Sandhu gave us a mid-year review of what’s happening with the club. But first, he noted that a Rotary International Study indicated that 95 percent of all Rotarians surveyed -- and there were thousands surveyed -- replied to the question “why did you join/stay in Rotary” by citing “social reasons,” “making an impact locally,” and/or “networking” in response.
That led directly into his discussion of the fine job that PP Dennis Harvey has been doing as Membership Director. He noted the Rotary Information table he has been setting up at events and the recent effort to survey our membership (31 of the 60-odd members have responded). Lucky indicated that we have five new members so far this year with another two in the pipeline. Quite an accomplishment!
He next mentioned the quality of our weekly Programs, as organized by Marv Remmich. We’ve recently had the San Ramon Police Chief and the Contra Costa County Sheriff as speakers; both programs were interesting and well received. There has also been an effort made to have our members be presenters, both in their fields of employment and for interesting topics from their life story.
Community Service is headed up by Karen McNamera and includes a host of activities such as the Online Auction, the Christmas Tree Lot, the Dictionary Distribution to 4th graders, the Smoke Alarm Project and others. These give our membership a hands-on opportunity to assist the community!
Youth Services, headed up by Colette Lay, has for some time now been actively engaged with the Cal High Interact Club. Lucky mentioned that he believes we have a vastly higher level of engagement with these young people than the average club.
Mark Hornstra heads up Public Relations and the emphasis here has been to use Social Media to reach out to the community and inform them of the good work our club has been doing. Right now we have 479 followers on FaceBook; we’d like to get to 500!
Also mentioned by Can Do Sandhu were Edgardo Carrillo, Patti Hennigan, Guy Greco, Jeff Disch, Ray Giles and Ana Dominguez. Each in their own way have helped make this club a success!
Raffle: The Greeter’s Gift of a bag of chocolate, was won by Marco Bronzini, and the opportunity to draw that white marble was won by Chris Gallagher. He did not get it so he only walked off with $10.00! The pot at the next regular meeting will therefore be $160.
Program: We will be meeting at Cal High with the Interact Club, so DO NOT show up at the Country Club! You might want to carpool since parking is always a bit problematic.
