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MARCH 6, 2009
Reporter: Cal Lee Editor: Ron Brown Photographer: Tom Black
Pat Flaharty, President, 2008 - 2009
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IS ROTARY THIS READY?
 Hopefully more troops will be able to come home these days. Alex Arnold gave a poignant Thought about this. A pilot who had flown 300 missions flew home, drove to Pennsylvania, and arrived home at sunup. He saw his kids, who greeted, "Welcome home, Dad!" How did they know? His wife looked marvelous and was all prepared. How did she know? She said, "I didn't. But we knew you'd be here one of these days. We were READY EVERY DAY."
THE KIDS DO IT ALL
Becky Ware will be Outbound! After her obviously brilliant  interview with the Student Exchange Panel, she was accepted for her first choice, Argentina. Eat your heart out, Papa Steve.
Mehrnaz Ahrar of Acalanes is clearly the spirit of InterAct, and gave a spirited talk about a retreat last weekend. Leadership, awesome guest speakers, people opening up, unusual  opportunities. Women trying to get women in India educated. (Educating a woman helps the community, whereas educating a man helps just one person. Did she really say that?) Self awareness, based on the triangle of Rest, Work and Fun, was an important element she hadn't thought of before.
ADULTS DO A LITTLE BIT TOO
Tom Black had an idea, as he often does. He thought a series on service clubs in the Lafayette Today newspaper would be good. The newspaper folks apparently agreed, and guess which service club they gave the honorary 1st position to? You'll find out when the paper arrives in your mailbox by the end of next week.
Paul Bettelheim, after his Common Hope experience in  Guatemala, decided to do something about the poverty he saw there. Individual coffee growers there are taking the initiative to form cooperatives selling directly, so that the growers will receive fair compensation. As a fundraiser, Paul is offering exquisite Guatemalan coffee for $10/pound, of which $8 will go to the farmers and $2 to our Endowment. See Paul to participate. (Already he has a competitor, as Tom Black helpfully said if you don't like the coffee, try Peet's Guatemalan coffee.)
John Fazel is at PETS. He'll come back a changed man.
Gillett Johnson volunteered to pull together everything we're doing, to share our projects with the community. He'll email a spread sheet where all members will be featured. Stay tuned.
EVENTS
Board Meeting on Tuesday, March 10th, at John Fazel's office, strategically located by Peet's Coffee in Orinda. (You just can't get away from Tom Black.) Get rid of those Red Badges, you rookies.
Prez Pat, on the understandable assumption that not everyone would read the written notices which were probably located  under the breakfast plates by now, called attention to the District Assembly training seminar. A great way to learn about, well, Rotary. Unless you'd rather go on other days to Chico, Paradise, or Redding, probably the best date is April 11th, 8:00-2:00, at the Concord campus of Cal State East Bay (remember Hayward?), 4700 Ygnacio Road, Concord.
Maybe going to the Assembly would get us back in Pat's good graces. He was VERY disappointed that so many blew the last TGITLFOTM, when folks tended not to call and say they weren't coming. Never mind that the host, Dr. Bettelheim, thought it was a great evening.
 Don Reichert will be contacting folks to give 3-minute talks about vocation and avocation. (Don himself would be an interesting presenter, to see how he keeps the talk under 3 minutes.) He also highly recommended a digital art exhibition at St. Mary's which will be going until May.
POLIO PLUS NEEDS MORE PLUS
Dan Herbert is proud of what Rotary has done with polio. But he says we've gotten complacent. In January, Uganda had its first polio case in the last 12 years; they're asking for $3 million to combat it. Similarly, South Sudan had its first case in 20 years, and this month is starting a vast immunization program. Similar stories in Kenya and Nigeria where they're having a house to house campaign.
Stepping up again are the UN's World Health Organization, UNICEF, -- and Rotary. Lots of individual clubs, near and far, are doing the same. Bill Sargent, head of Polio Plus for 12 years in an unpaid position. And of course there's Bill Gates, pledging to toss in $355 million if Rotary kicks in $200 million by June 2012.
Asks Dan: "What will YOU do?"
The Prez attended a Rotary event last week with a number of important speakers stressing the urgency of this. In fact, it was said that Rotary won't go into water projects until polio is really finished.
YOUR BUDDY AT LAS TRAMPAS
Buddy Burke may not be a big rain fan, both because he's a pilot  and because it's keeping us from toiling at Las Trampas. When it quits, it's time for us to get down in the muck and dig French drains there. The Boy Scouts are on call to help, and they may show us how. The Prez urged that InterAct not be forgotten.
Las Trampas maybe has more courage than we do. They ARE having a fundraiser in April. Buddy urged that we encourage them, either personally or by tipping them off to merchants who might want to help.
MYSTERY MEN
The Prez loves the Mystery Rotarian concept, maybe because it's so bizarre.
 #1 of the day is the oldest of 13 grandkids, loves to paint houses, and goofed around for 10 years to complete his degree. This was Jim Brencic, who was in a student painters' program where they painted 23 houses one summer in Fremont, plus soliciting door to door, and apparently Jim was cheated out of part of his promised pay. More happily, he did student painting for a year in Florence, then extended his stay because his girlfriend (now spouse) was coming there. He did 30 abstract paintings of architecture in Florence.
#2 was a lead singer in a rock band, and owned a bakery. This of course would be Al Sevilla. The rock bank, which existed during  high school and college years during the Beatle period, was so prominent that Al couldn't remember its name. He still does custom wedding cakes. His most memorable cake was for a July 4th country club parade: an 8' tall cake carried on shoulders, bearing the 50 state flags, and serving 1,000. This is probably why Al is such a large man.
IS HE EVEN BETTER THAN BILL CLINTON?
Brad Davis has been inspired to reveal his true talent at last -- the tenor sax. Actually, Brad wants to keep us in suspense about his own talent, but to reveal the greatest and most versatile saxophone player he's ever seen. Guy's name is Mark Maxwell, and he performed on Mt. Diablo Blvd. at the Lafayette  Art & Wine, and Brad and family were transfixed. Well, Brad overcame his shyness and contacted Mark, and the latest email said that Mark offers house concerts. Brad kind of wondered whether this might be of interest as a fundraiser.
The interest and ideas of the audience grew in a short time, so this looks like a live one. You can listen to Mark for free on his website, which is www.markmaxwell.org, where you can read about him, then click on Music and then click on a CD. So check it out and come up with ideas.
SUPER-SUB
Jim Brencic is either very good or very lucky. Probably the latter. The scheduled speaker didn't show up, but Hays Englehart had, wittingly or unwittingly, provided for just such an occasion by bringing his guest Jenni Beeman, district manager in Central Contra Costa of Junior Achievement.
JA serves about 14,000 students in Central Contra Costa, 106,000 last year in Northern California, and 4.5 million worldwide.
Unlike the very old days, Junior Achievement is now involved with kids in grades K-12. The social aspects are very different from what they were, when it was for high schoolers to form "companies" and sell products. Now, in the early years, they already learn what money is and does. In middle and high schools, in addition to business development and entrepreneurship, they get into such fields as supply and demand, as well as financial literacy which is startlingly absent in many cases.
Volunteers are appreciated. In fact, there's a vacancy right now at Happy Valley School for the 1st grade. 5 lessons, 45 minutes each.
One distinguished alumnus is Hays Englehart, who has taught in the program, and observed that if all students took this program, the current economic meltdown might have been avoided.
Jenni concluded, somewhat dryly, by saying a mother called her with appreciation for including her 7-year-old daughter in the program; the daughter had just received her first credit card application.
VISITING ROTARIANS
Gail & Ken Woznak, Orinda
Bill Eames, Lafayette Noon
GUESTS
Jenni Beeman, Junior Achievement, substitute extraordinaire
Mehrhaz Ahrar, Acalanes InterAct
CALENDAR
3/10/09: Board Meeting, John Fazel office, 7:00 a.m.
3/13/09: Brad Howard, Rotary Foundation (a GREAT speaker)
3/27/09: Exposureself, Ken Kosich and Dave Watson
4/10/09: Annaline Scholz, Rotary Academic Scholar (with Orinda Rotarian Pete Giers)
4/17/09: Micheal Pope, Executive Director, Alzheimers Service of the East Bay
4/24/09: Expose', Tay Wheeler and Venera Maysuryants
5/15/09: Pascal Kaplan, JFK Graduate School of Holistic Studies | |
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ADDITIONAL
PHOTOS OF THIS AND OTHER LSR EVENTS MAY BE FOUND AT TFBLACK.SMUGMUG.COM. SHOULD BE
YOU SMITTEN BY A PARTICULAR IMAGE, PRINTS MAY BE ORDERED FROM THIS WEBSITE. (THE
QUALITY IS EXCELLENT.).
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Contact Us
Rotary Club of Lamorinda Sunrise
PO Box 1491
Lafayette, California 94549
www.lamorindasunrise.org
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