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March 13, 2009  
Reporter: Rich Shearer        Editor:  Ron Brown          Photographer: Tom Black 
Pat Flaharty, President, 2008 - 2009


THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
 
Rich Shearer shared some wisdom learned at his Daddy's knee:rich 1-23 "Always tell the truth.  One, it's the right thing to do.  Two, if you do, you don't have to worry about remembering what lies you told people.   Three, if you always tell the truth, and you have that reputation, on those rare occasions when you really have to lie, you are much more likely to get away with it."
 
Make of it what you will.
 
GUESTS, VISITING ROTARIANS, AND SUCH
 
Carol McNulty
Bill Eames - Lafayette
Larry Ducent - Lafayette
Alex Wilson - Scion of the Mike Wilson clanmike & alex 3-13
Mark Roberts - Past charter member and 2nd President of the USF Rotaract Club
Agatha Sue Lee - a ray of sunshine in our otherwise hum-drum existence.  And Cal's wife, to boot.
 
KUDOS TO RON
 
Ron Brown cranks out the Weekly Weakly every week.  Prez Pat thanked him for it today. Ron was appropriately humble.
 
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
 
Last week's speaker didn't get much of a write-up because he didn't make it here after confirming the night before.  Turns out he had some sort of reaction to some new medication and as a result slept straight through the alarm.  We're just happy it wasn't a traffic accident or the sudden realization of just who he would be facing.
 
FAZEL SPEAKS - AND SPEAKS - AND SPEAKS SOME MORE
 
John Fazel was the Program for the first third of the meeting.  First, he regaled us with stories of PETS (President-Elect Training Seminar, for the uninitiated) from last weekend.  John is a Charter Member of Lamorinda Sunrise, and thought he knew a lot about Rotary.  He has also been going to seminars and training sessions of one sort or another for many moons, but as he said: This is the first one where I never looked at my watch once."  As is true with almost every Club President who has ever been, John found PETS to be one of the coolest perks of the job of President - and his year hasn't even started yet.
 
john fazel 3-13John next turned to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  If you'll recall, the Club, under John's leadership, raised over $7,000 for flood relief there.  Now seven Rotary Clubs in the Cedar Rapids area are doing a fun fund raiser - the Great Eastern Iowa Duck Race.  It's June 6 in Cedar Rapids (Duh!), and you can participate by sponsoring a single duck for $5, all the way up to the V.I.D. ("Very Important Duck" - and no, I did not make this up) package of 28 ducks for $100.  Each duck you sponsor makes you eligible for prizes up to and including a Toyota Prius (a new one, not Paul Fillinger's).  Get more info at http://www.crdaybreak.org/content.asp?ID=3886&I=7403. 
 
And since John was never one for sitting there quietly, he also reminded us about the upcoming District Assembly on April 11 in Concord.  You should go.  Really.  It is a great way to get up-to-speed about the myriad ways Rotary is doing great stuff District-wide and getting great ideas to bring back and pester John with to do next year.
 
GET YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER'S E-MAIL ADDRESS TO CHUCK YEAGER
 
I think the heading says it all.  Look, you know you never pass along Rotary info to the Light of Your Life, so why not just tell Chuck his/her e-mail address so the info can go to them directly? 
 
 
MEMBERSHIP MOMENT
 
Hays Englehart had two things to say.  One, the Two-for-One ("2-4-1") program (each one of us is responsible for bringing two guests to breakfast during Pat's year) is working - witness the great new members we have been adding.  Two, keep it up.
 
AND THERE WILL BE GREAT REJOICING
 
joanne 3-13She can't pronounce it, but she's hosting it at the end of the month.  "It," of course, is TGITLFOTM, and "She" is none other than Joanne Luscher.  Mirth and merriment is promised.
 
AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE OFF THE HOOK
 
Just when it appeared that there would be no auction fun this year, Ken Kosich stepped up to announce that we will, from time to time, auction off goodies at meetings.  Next week, for example, we will auction off a weekend at the serene ken 3-13mountain retreat of the Luschers at, you guessed it, Serene Lakes.  So come one, come all, and be prepared to bid.  All proceeds go into either the Rich Shearer Retirement Fund or the Club's Endowment Fund (I can never remember which).
 
FREE-TRADE COFFEE STILL AVAILALBLE
 
Paul Bettelheim still has some really good free-trade coffee beans (roasted but unground) from Guatemala available for $10 a pound.  Free-trade means that $8 of each sale goes to the farmers who actually grow the stuff. Paul selling it means that the other $2 goes to our Club endowment fund.  Thanks for keeping up with this, Paul.
 
TIDBITS AND MISCELLANEA
 
Paul Fillinger is in training to be an Official Photographer for a Rotary International trip to China.  Rumor has it that Lopez sisters will be carrying his gear.
 
George Chaffey has been a busy little beaver doing all manner of stuff at the District and Zone levels, not to mention being heavily involved (as opposed to heavingly involved)in the recent PETS session to which John Fazel was consigned.
 
Jackie Welles sends her thanks for the get-well card, and Ray reports that she is recovering nicely from her knee replacement.
 
Krysten Laine had some minor surgery, and we wish her the best, of course.  And we also understand, Krysten, that "minor surgery," like a "minor injury" in sports, applies only when someone else is on the receiving end.
 
skip 3-13Skip McCowan reports that some Seattle area Clubs have openings for a work trip to Guatemala to help out at Common Hope this Fall.  You will never have a better, more moving time doing good in the world.  See Skip for details.
 
Which segues nicely into Cal Lee's noting that Harriet Ainsworth of The Sun has written up Skip & Co's recent Common Hope work party.  As always, it is an honor to receive attention from the doyenne of the local press.
 
Brad Davis reported that he, lovely bride Carol, and the Kosichs, Ken and Patti, got together and had a lovely evening.  In Maui.  The moment somehow escaped without money changing hands.
 
PLEASE RESPOND TO GILLET'S E-MAIL
 
Gillet Johnson recently sent out an e-mail asking for info aboutgillett 1-16 the other activities and do-good stuff you are involved in out there in The Community.  This is so we can all get a better sense of what we all do out there.  If you haven't responded, please do so.  Don't make us hunt you down . . . .
 
BIRTHDAYS & ANNIVERSARIES & MISCELLANEOUS GOOD NEWS
 
Linda McCowan had a birthday.  Skip took her to dinner.  We took Skip to the cleaners.
 
hays & dave 3-13Hays' Englehart's daughter and another of his unidentified (by this reporter) close personal relatives both had birthday's.  A family gathering, pool until all hours of the night, and general fun seem to have been the order of the day.
 
Joanne Luscher reported that, for the fifth time, a grandchild of hers received a Rotary dictionary, this time her granddaughter in Belmont.
 
MYSTERY ROTARIAN
 
tom black 2-27He isn't Canadian.  He hates the Yankees from birth and the Red Sox more recently.  He actually watched the Cuyahoga River burn in Cleveland.  Who else could it be but Tom Black.  Our program for the second part of the meeting was Tom telling us about covering this story as a cub reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, trying to get Ted Williams' autograph in his last Cleveland appearance, and responding to Brad Davis' heckling.
 
PROGRAM
 
Today, it was our great honor to have as our speaker, right here in Lafayette, Blair Howard's Dad.  (Sorry, Brad, I simply had to do that.)
 
brad howard l 3-13Brad Howard is a Lafayette resident, a member of the Oakland Sunrise Rotary Club, and a Past District Governor of District 5170, our neighbor just over the hill.  Brad has taken hundreds of Rotarians overseas to administer vaccine for Polio Plus, deliver wheelchairs for the Rotary's partnership with the Wheelchair Foundation, and many other Rotary-related international projects.  Oh, and he's the Zone 24 Polio Challenge coordinator.  (A Zone is a collection of Districts - the next higher level is the Rotary International worldwide leadership.)
 
Brad noted that all Rotary Clubs express themselves through service, be it Community, Club, Vocational, International (the traditional Four Avenues of Service) or Youth.  We can and do add value to our local communities in countless ways.
 
But, argues Brad, community service, as important as it is, is not what defines Rotary or sets Rotary apart.  After all, there are any number of other organizations that do things similar to what we do on the local level.  Many Rotary Clubs even donate money to help those organizations fulfill their missions.  All of which are valuable and well worth doing.
 
But, says Brad, it is what we as Rotarians do internationally that makes us unique.  Look no further than Polio Plus.  Who else but Rotary International had the audacity to declare global war on a disease and stay the course to wipe it out?  The best estimates are that Polio Plus has resulted in over 2 billion children around the world being immunized against polio, resulting in 5 million healthy children today who would otherwise have been polio victims.  No private organization has ever had that kind of impact.
 
And that is not the end of it.  Brad was in the Ivory Coast last brad howard 3-13November for a polio immunization campaign.  While there, he met a woman with a United Methodist Church group that was there to hand out mosquito nets for malaria prevention.  How many nets?  850,000.  Brad asked how they were able to pull this off.  She pointed to the Rotary wheel on his shirt and said "because of you guys showing us how with your polio campaign."   So it isn't just what Rotary has been able to accomplish itself.  By pulling off Polio Plus, by making happen a program that the Wall Street Journal opined in 2005 qualifies Rotary International for the Nobel Peace Prize, we have inspired other groups to take up the challenge of attacking other diseases, other conditions, other blights on the human condition. 
 
The engine that makes this happen is the Rotary Foundation.  This is the money-handling wing of the good works that Rotary International does.  And it is one of the best, most efficiently run do-good foundations out there.
 
That's not just Rotary International or Rotarians who say so.  The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations says so.  The Gates Foundation is incredibly picky about where its money goes.  They demand accountability and transparency and beyond-reproach behavior that makes Caesar's wife look like a pick-pocket.   The Gates Foundation people studied Rotary International and Polio Plus with a high-powered microscope - and decided to put up a $100 million matching grant.  We have raised $74 million towards matching that in record time.  Now, the Gates Foundation will put up another $255 million if Rotary can raise an additional $100 million in the next five (I think - sorry, Brad) years.  That is about as good a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval as you can get. 
 
Brad recognizes that international projects do not float every Rotarian's boat.  Many of us are more interested in other areas of service.  And that is okay.
 
But, says Brad, there are still very good reasons for all Rotarians to give to the Rotary Foundation.  For one thing, two-thirds of the Rotary Foundation money stays local.  The money that our local District has to fund District Simplified Grants and tons of other local or regional projects is returned to the District by the Rotary Foundation.  So donating to TRF is, in fact, helping local projects.
 
But there is another, only slightly more esoteric reason.  The world may not be getting smaller in a literal sense, but causes that occur overseas are having direct effects here faster and faster all the time.  Remember SARS a few years ago and how afraid we were of it?  It came from Asia and was here as quickly as a commercial jet liner.  Computer viruses and worms can come from literally anywhere in the world in less than a second.  The job market is increasingly international.  The fact of the matter is that, in a very real sense, our "community" is truly global, whether we like it or not.  So helping wipe out the last vestiges of polio in India or delivering wheelchairs in Africa or advancing the cause of clean water in Central America is, in fact, helping the community.
 
So how do you help?  By contributing to the Rotary Foundation.  (Ed. note - Yes, this is the money that goes toward your Paul Harris Award.) 
 
Many thanks, Brad, for bringing us an inspiring and important message.  
 
UPCOMING EVENTS
as seen on our web site calendar
 
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
Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Links
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Lafayette, California 94549
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