THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Polly does it!

Mary doesn't!

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."   This pretty good rule, The Golden Rule, was brought back to our attention by Polly Bernson.   After that, Mary Mark recited a poem from her recently published book.  The poem's title: "Bitch Bitch Bitch."  Not surprisingly, the point of it was trying to avoid doing that.

VISITING ROTARIANS

Larry Sly - Concord

John Sherry - Lafayette

Alicia Cragholm - Lafayette

Don Jenkins - Orinda (for now)

GUESTS OF OTHER PERSUASIONS

Mike Gilson - form LSR Member ad Heavily Involved in the Town Hall Theater

Pat Hartwell

Darryl So - neighbor of Chuck Bove

BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES, AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS GOODIES

Chuck Yeager had a birthday. So did Polly Bernson.  Cal Lee not only

Jackpot, Cal

had a birthday, but his grandson turned one and Agatha Sue is about to have a birthday, too. Proper assessments were assessed to all, but Cal went above and beyond the call. To honor his trifecta, he donated $100 into today's raffle pot. Many thanks, Cal.

Hay's follows suit!

And when it came time for the raffle, Hays Englehart not only had the winning ticket, he drew the white marble.  Being nothing if not generous, President-to-Be Hays turned all of it over to the Home Team fund.  Many thanks, Hays.

NEWS FROM THE TOWN HALL THEATER

Thanks for the invitation Mike

Former Lamorinda Sunrise Rotarian Mike Gilson came to invite us all to a special "Thank You" event put on by the Town Hall Theater to, you guessed it, thank its patrons.  The party will be Saturday, August 4 at 7:00 p.m.  In addition to the usual food and fun, there will be preview of the upcoming season.  Mike let it be known that "Sly Fox," "It's a Wonderful Life," The Farnsworth Chronicles" and Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" will be produced.  It sounds like a great line-up, and it sounds like a great shindig.

THANK YOU TO THE PEASES

When last we saw Norm and Janet Pease, they were taking possession of Tippy the Canoe, the work of floatable art hand-built by Gary Fulcher and his band of merry apprentices.  Well, the Peases still remember us.  Indeed, they have gifted us with a $1,000 donation.  All we can say, Norm and Janet, is "wow" and a humble "thank you."

WE NEED TGITLFOTM HOSTS

The headline pretty much covers it.  The July TGITLFOTM will take place at Mark & Claire Roberts' chateau, but the following months are pretty much open.  Any takers?

A HAPPY BLAST FROM THE PAST

Close to 20 years ago, Malte Fischer came to Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary from Løgstør, Denmark, as a Youth Exchange student.  Malte was upbeat, fun-loving, and not particular interested in academics.   He, his parents, and the Løgstør Rotary Club became fast friends with Lamorinda Sunrise, and especially with George and Carol Chaffey.  In the intervening years, Malte has graduated from college, completed American law school, passed the New York bar exam, began a mediation career, and switched to financial planning.  While all this was going on, he also got married and started a family.  In short, the fun-loving high school student we knew has long since grown up.  He's still fun-loving, but with maturity that a family, a career and a mortgage will bring.

Well, says George Chaffey, Malte will be in town for a visit and should be here at our next meeting.  Be sure to say "hello" to Malte.  He is a friendly sort, to put it mildly.

PROGRAM

It's all yours, Mr. Prez

Today, we had the first of what President Mark Roberts says will be four general Club Assembly meetings during his year in which the Board will report directly to the Club on what is going on and seeking input from the Membership.  In this first such meeting, President Mark introduced his Board, and each of the Board members in attendance gave a brief overview of their plans for Mark's Reign of Error.

Before introducing his Board, Mark announced the first major Board decision of the year; we will not be doing the dictionary giveaway to third graders this year. 

Krysten loves the big show

First up of the Board members was Krysten Laine, the Community Relations Director. She has plans to increase our exposure throughout the Lamorinda area. Motorama will continue on and continue to grow.  Krysten will also be coordinating with the Development Committee.

Things were interrupted briefly while Krysten showed off her toe-gloves and John Fazel was fined $10 for admitting that he had some but not wearing them to our meetings, insisting instead on wearing sandals every week.

Mark learned this job well

Next up was Mark Larks, Club Service Director, head of the team responsible for seeing that our meetings get set up and torn down, for arranging our Holiday Party, and generally for taking care of all the many little details needed to make our activities possible.  Ron Melvin has agreed to serve on the Club Service Committee with Mark.

Ron Brown will again serve as the Communications Director.  He was not here today and thus was unable to defend himself as we cast aspersions on his character.

Spike steps up with Steve

The Community Service Committee will be Co-Chaired by Spike Speicher and Steve Ware.  This is the group that will coordinate our local "do-good" activities.  Also on this committee will be Brad Davis, who will continue his great work with the Garden Park Apartments.  Joe Bettencourt will soldier on with the Home Team, with Leander Houri ably assisting.  Dave Waal has also agreed to help out with this committee.

Can you say auction?

Our Director of Development (read "dialing for dollars") is Nancy Baglietto, If anyone is qualified to find a way to fill our coffers, it's Nancy.  And if anyone is qualified to make a lot of noise about filling our coffers, it's Rich Shearer, who has agreed to serve on the Development Committee. 

Gillett has a great team

International Service Director Gillett Johnson has Chuck Bove, Jim Marggraff and long-time International Service veteran Skip McCowan lined up to assist him with this committee. 

Walt Nelson is the Membership Director.  He is in charge of the largest committee of them all; as Walt points out, we are all part of growing and maintaining

Nice recruiting Walt.

our membership.  Walt stressed that we want quality, not just quantity (I could swear he was giving this reporter the stink-eye as he said this), and wants to carry on Past President Pat Flaharty's "I Get It" message to new and old members alike.  Claire Roberts has already signed on to assist Walt in what is, in many ways, the most important committee of them all. 

Nobody does it better!

Buddy Burke, of course, is staying on as the Grand High Poobah of Programs.  He is looking to bring the "wow" factor every week.  He is also striving for variety.  An interesting note that Buddy brought up: between several "dark" weeks that we have, the once-a-month "Expose Yourself" programs (already filled for the year by Kevin Cragholm), several weeks that are already spoken for such as the District Governor's visit, and Club Assemblies, there are fewer than 30 programs per year to line up.  Buddy reports that he has already filled in most, and perhaps all, of President Mark's year.  Pretty impressive initiative and planning by both Buddy and Kevin. 

Although it is not officially a Board position, Cal Lee is once again filling a critically important role as The Foundation Guy.  That means he is the Club liaison with both The Rotary Foundation (where your Paul Harris and Polio Plus dollars go) and with the Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary Endowment Fund, our 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.  The Endowment Fund is where all the money we raise for do-good projects goes (doing it this way makes contributions tax-deductible and provides a reality check on the

Mr. Endowment

President and his Board, The Endowment Fund Board consists of Paul Bettelheim (President and supplier of wine and cookies at their meetings), Brad Davis (who has been doing a fabulous job of shepherding the Endowment Fund's assets through some very tough times), Cal, Ernie Furtado and Steve Ware. 

A couple of points relating to Foundation and Endowment affairs are worth noting here.  On the Club Endowment side, 75% of our "do-good" fund-raising goes to the current or immediate next year's project fund, depending on timing and other factors.  The other 25% goes into a permanent fund that the Endowment has been growing for ten or more years now.  The goal is to create a permanent fund that is large enough to generate sufficient interest to pay for most, or even all, of the Club's good works.  Through the foresight and planning of the Endowment Board, which has been remarkably stable over the years, and some hard fund-raising work by the Club over the years, we are well on our way to meeting that goal. 

On the Rotary Foundation front, $35 of each quarterly bill that Treasurer Ernie Furtado hands you is forwarded to The Rotary Foundation as part of your annual Paul Harris Fellowship contribution. (You receive recognition as a Paul Harris Fellow for every $1,000 contributed.)  That money is invested for three years, and the overhead of The Rotary Foundation and Rotary International are paid for by the interest generated by those invested funds.  At the end of that three year period, every single penny of your contribution goes to funding Rotary's good works all over the world.  50% of your contribution comes back to District 5160 for use in District programs, especially the various Matching Grant programs in which a Club can effectively double the funds available for a project or, if it is an qualifying international project, triple the funds available by getting matching funds from both the District and then from The Rotary Foundation.  Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary built a bridge in Tanzania through these matching funds, and funds sent back from The Rotary Foundation to District 5160 helped finance the LN-4 hand project that created the artificial hands we send overseas in honor of our speakers. Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary is also part of a group of Clubs in District 5160 that are financing an international clean water well project that is also receiving District matching funds. 

Thomas Peeks has agreed to oversee the care and feeding of our Red Badgers this year. 

Go get him Dennis

Chuck and Ernie, a fantastic duo

Dennis Kuramai will be our Sergeant-at-Arms, the only person with the power to fine the President. (Officially, that is true, but past practice suggests that others will usurp that authority when it seems appropriate.)

Ernie Furtado will again be our Treasurer, with Kevin Croak stepping in to assist.  And don't be surprised if Claire Roberts is dragooned into occasional service here, too, considering the fine job she did filling in for Ernie while he was away recently.  Chuck Yeager has also agreed to soldier on as our Club Secretary.  Ernie and Chuck operate almost entirely behind the scenes, but any Past President can tell you that the work they do is critically important to the smooth functioning of the Club, and the job they do means that the President and the Board can concentrate on service projects and Club functions without having to worry about the books or whether the correct records have been forwarded to Rotary International. 

President Elect Hays

Hays Englehart is the President-Elect, also known as President Mark's Best Friend.  His main function this year will be, in conjunction with other area Clubs, to help get the area Rotary Resource Guide published and distributed. 

President Mark also offered special thanks to Gary Fulcher.  In addition to all he has done with the Club's website, Gary has done yeoman work to assure that our computer stuff and the District's computer stuff can actually exchange stuff. 

At this point, Mark threw the floor open for suggestions, questions, and the like.  Three main ideas emerged from the discussion.

Buddy Burke forwarded an idea for a local project: a scholarship, perhaps $1,000 per year, for "first generation" college students, meaning students whose parents did not go to college.  Kevin and Alicia Cragholm suggested that we get involved in developing a program on Financial Literacy for area high school students, designed to give teens information about at least the rudiments of financial reality (e.g., how to balance a checkbook, how compound interest works, why getting and maxing out a bunch of credit cards when you start college is a bad idea, the law of supply and demand).  Dennis Kuramai proposed, in light of the Board decision on the dictionary project, that we look into supplying tablet computers pre-loaded with appropriate educational software (obviously selected in consultation with the teachers). 

We ran out of time before other ideas, questions or comments could be aired, but that does not mean that you cannot make proposals, ask questions, or voice concerns.  For one thing, there will be three more of these Club Assemblies - the next one is in October - at which the committee chairs will report back and more input will be decidedly welcome.  For another thing, you are always welcome, encouraged even, to attend the monthly Bard meetings (second Tuesday of the month, 7:00 a.m.).  Finally, you can e-mail or phone President Mark or a Board member with your thoughts. 

It was an excellent Club Assembly, and a lot of ground was covered.  It looks like the Club is in good hands this year.

CALENDAR

Friday 7/20, 7 am - John Yoo, Legal Counsel, George W. Bush

Friday 7/27 7am - Expose yourself, Claire Roberts

Friday 8/3, 7am - Saving lives, a woof and a meow

Friday 8/10, 7 am - Economist Tappan Monroe

Tuesday 8/14, 7am - Board meeting

Friday 8/17, 7am - Dan Borenstein & Pensions continued

Friday 8/24 7am - B'wana Carole Chaffey, Liberia

2012 - August 25, October 27

2013 - January 26, March 23, May 25, July 27