THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Mark ALWAYS has a THOUGHT

 

Mark Roberts evoked a quote from Dean Smith, College Hall of Fame member and former coach of the North Carolina Tarheels, to whit: "If you make every game a life and death proposition you're going to have problems. For one thing...You'll be dead a lot!"

 

GUESTS

 

Geoff Talbot - Protégé of Alex Arnold

Kara Wheeler - Tay's daughter and UCLA whiz kid.

Tay Wheeler - Testing the "you're always welcome here" theory

Polly Bernsen - Diablo Print proprietor. We're hoping this becomes a   weekly habit.

Alicia Cragholm - Checking up on hubby Kevin

Ron Olowin - Guest Speaker extraordinaire

 

ALEX TAKES CONTROL, HERE AND NOW

 

Here's where we're going!

In a marked change of pace from typical club meetings, Alex abruptly called the unruly mob to order. He then took them down a well-thought-out path regarding the short-term and future direction of the club. Working closely with the board of directors and president elect Mark Roberts, Alex reviewed those items which they collectively found important and decisive to pursue, along with the dollars to be spent. Sharing with the club both intentions and plans is part of an ongoing setting up of new agendas for Alex, Mark and future presidents.

 

He began by introducing each director with brief words on the job descriptions and responsibilities of each one. Each board member is committed to a three year term...the first as "trainee," the second in charge and the third as a mentor. Now we need to backfill, all of us.

 

The board has approved the following major budget items for 2011/2012:

 

L/N-4 Hands/Gillett                         $2,000

Tanzania Clean Water/Gillett            2,000

Las Tampas/Gillett                            1,000

Camp Royal/Venture/Waal               2,800

4 Way Speech/Waal                            700

CC Interfaith/Davis                               500

Dictionaries/Chaffey, Raeth              4,000

Home Team/Englehart                      1,500

75 Year lunch/Fazel                              800

Generations in Jazz/Krysten                615

The Russian/Fazel                            1,394

 

Total:                                              $17,309

 

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

 

Identity/Direction: Mission Statement

 

Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary, by its name, is a Regional Club composed of volunteer members who are devoting their time to the community with a "Service Above Self" attitude. In identifying community needs, we look for areas that are either underserved or unaddressed.

 

We believe in establishing our own projects or we may partner with one or more other non-profit organizations, but in all cases we try to emphasize "hands-on" participation.

 

Membership

 

We agree that the membership is driven by community involvement and that sixty to seventy members is a good number.

 

Community Outreach

 

We agree that club involvement is comprised of four different approaches:

 

-  Check Writing: Tanzania, Generations in Jazz, Buena Vista Auxiliary

-  Services: Camp Royal/Venture, 4 Way Speech, Christmas Families,  

                    Interact 

-   Hands On: Westival, HOME team, Rush Ranch, Las Trampas,                     CC Interfaith, Dictionaries, 75 year luncheon

-  Community events: Motorama, 25 year club celebration, benches 

 

Fund Raising

 

Our club fund raising activities are being impacted by our new members and that's good! We are in a "monetary space" where we have time to develop and make decisions on the following:

 

-         Speakers/four times a year

-         Canoe and other unique things to build and raffle

-         Wine festival for both bonded and non-bonded wine growers

 

Each of these topics will be addressed/updated frequently with the club as progress or development occurs. Well done, Alex! Consider us now to be enlightened.

 

PROGRAM

Aiming for the stars

 

Our guest speaker this morning is Professor Ron Olowin of St. Mary's College. He has a PhD in Astrophysics. In addition to teaching, Ron serves on many international committees dealing with the universe. Simply put, his is the business of the stars.

 

What followed was a fascinating half hour presentation on the explosion of concurrent data coming at us about the universe: its pattern and structure to all scales, from fruits and vegetables to the galaxy; its process, i.e. events follow in a directed "arrow of time" thus making order out of disorder; and the emergent properties due to vast increase in information using modern technology. Again, simply put, the physical world can be explained mathematically.

 

There are three concurrent evolutions taking place: Cosmological (nature of the universe), Biological (only one form of life) and Informational, where Professor Olowin chose to focus the majority of his presentation. Some interesting informational tidbits were that the Bay Area, with all of its internet connections, is actually modeled after the human brain. The speed of travel has exploded from Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years. We are the first generation to ever see our planet (1969 from Apollo 17) from space. All the water on earth rolled up in a ball would be 900 miles wide. Space junk now contains over 3,000 satellites, etc. We are now able to see images of earth from Mars and Saturn. Several examples of the size of the earth and the sun versus similar entities in the galaxies showed just what an insignificant speck we are in the greater scheme of the universe.

Time's just flying by here

 

Ron revealed the disturbing information that we only have five billion more years until the end of the sun (and, presumably, what is left of earth at the same time). So make the most of every day that you can. He also informed us that there is now a committee that will be determining, among other things, what will be the nationality of someone born in space, like the moon for instance. In fact space law is needed to determine who owns the moon. There are salvage rights and property rights to be considered. How about militarist rights, synthetic life patents, artificial intelligence? Indeed, there really does need to be terrestrial laws sooner rather than later.

 

Ron ran out of time all too soon. He promised to come back and finish the job in the not-too-distant future. He left us with this puzzler to mull over "If a child is born on the moon does that make him/her a "Lunatic?" Gotcha!

 

NOVEMBER 25, DARK - For those relying on the Newsletter for this type of timely information, you should know by now that isn't a good idea.

 

DECEMBER 2, 201  

 

Reporter: Cal Lee, Photographer: Tom Black

                      

THOUGHTLESS DAY

 

There was no Thought for the Day, unless it was President Alex's thoughtful admonition, "Don't touch the kids". Instead, everyone congregated at the bar. That's not as bad as it sounds. You see, the bar was the best place for an assembly line.

 

Spike, Don & Jim assembling

It was, in fact, Dictionary Day, and long before the meeting time, an assembly line was set up to slap in the labels, insert the letters to the parents, and get ready for transport, a whole bunch of dictionaries to be given to every third grader in Lafayette.

 

GUESTS

 

Rotarians:    Alicia Cragholm, Lafayette Rotary

                     John Sherry, Lafayette Rotary

                     Tom Henry, Lafayette Rotary

 

Other:          Tamara Raeth (actually a super-Rotarian)

 

No other guests were spotted among the hurly-burly.

 

Tamara really ran the show, and the three Lafayette Rotarians pitched in as members of that club so generously tend to do. Of course, Alicia, who has invented the category of Permanent Guest, is rarely not involved in any of our projects.

 

THERE WAS A MEETING, SORT OF  

 

Well, there was a very fast breakfast and an even quicker non-raffle.

 

Assignments were made for Dictionary Delivery.

 

To Burton Valley School:   Hays Englehart, Mark Roberts, Rich Shearer, Brad Davis, Leander Hauri

 

To Happy Valley School:  Jim Marggraff, Kevin & Alicia Cragholm, Spike Speicher, Don Reichert 

 

To St. Perpetua School;   Ken Kosich, George Chaffey

 

To Lafayette Elementary School:   Tamara Raeth, Ernie Furtado, Gary Fulcher, Alex the Great

 

To Springhill School:   Buddy Burke, Thomas Peeks, Skip McCowan, Cal Lee.

 

To Meher School:   Lonesome Pat Flaharty

George, Master of the dictionary

 

George Chaffey then gave a pep talk, essentially saying we should communicate the following:  

• Who we are & why we're there
• Have the kids look up the word "service"
• Explain the letter to be given the parents
• Have them write name on the label in the front cover 

The assembly line then reconvened and finished their work. Among the outstanding workers were Dave Waal (Garbage Disposal) and Patrick Flaharty (Letters & Labels).

 

AND DICTIONARY DAY CONTINUED

 

One of 446 happy kids

The troops then carried out their assaults on the various schools. Undoubtedly there will be further reporting on the results next week. From the Springhill group, it can be reported that a small quality control issue was discovered, in that 5 disappointed youngsters received books into which nary a label or letter were inserted. Consternation. However, the intrepid Buddy Burke, who also photographed the classroom session, heroically scrambled to obtain and deliver these items within a half hour, hopefully saving the day.

 

The kids were asked to look up the word service, and to give examples

We Get It!!!

of service of which they were aware. Interestingly, a number of them have parents who are in the military, so they certainly have an idea of service. Other excellent examples of service were also given.

 

We can also say that the Springhill administration and faculty seemed thrilled with the event and were very prepared for us. Perhaps more importantly, the kids themselves appeared to assume their ownership with pride, and they learned a lot about the word service.

 

Alicia & Don with attentive third graders at Happy  Valley School

 

Some notable and quotable quotes from the third grade adventures:

 

Thank you Tamara!

Tamara Raeth - "Thank you Rotarians for labeling and distributing the dictionaries again this year. The kids, as well as the teachers, were very happy to see us and were proud to have a dictionary of their own. We distributed a total of 446 dictionaries. A comment from one third grader, "Both my two older brothers received one and I am happy to receive one too."

 

Skip McCowan - "It was interesting to hear from one

It is worthwhile!

of the teachers at Springhill, who was very enthusiastic about the program and thanked us profusely for coming, that the teachers there were asked if there is another way our club could provide better support for the students and she reported that even though a lot of kids use electronic media to look up words, the consensus was that this is a very worthwhile project."  

 

CALENDAR

 

Friday, 12/9 - Postino 7am - Susan & Sal Captain, Wine Growers Assn.

Tuesday, 12/13 - Orinda 7 am - Board Meeting

Friday, 12/16 - Postino 7am - Last meeting of the year