Meeting Recap for December 10, 2012
Rotarians were packed in like sardines at this week’s meeting -- apropos for our guest speaker, Holly Lohuis, as you’ll learn shortly -- with much to cover between now and then.
It’s been awhile since the hard working wait staff at the Red Lion had to rush out additional tables for the overflow crowd, but Monday was one of them, as our ranks were swelled by a gaggle of young folk from around the world in the form of our visiting RYE students (Rotary Youth Exchange, for our newer [and more forgetful older] members), an appreciable number of visiting and prospective Rotarians (the result of our ongoing membership drive contest, which the lovely Oleta Lambert’s “Giants” team is leading with 55 points to date), and many Rotarians who came to pay their respects to our recently departed member, Bob Biko.
Bob’s longtime friend and partner in club-related food and wine extravaganzas, Horace Wulff, provided the eulogy, advising that, during his 34 years in the club, Bob’s contributions included starting the tradition of the pre-meeting wine reception (donating the vino for years during his career at Lovotti Brothers), and the concept of the dessert table as a way to cut our lunch costs while still providing a quality offering to the members. Take a gander at Bob’s picture in the directory and you’ll note that he appears a fair bit younger than his 68 trips around the sun – a photo taken from an earlier millennium that Bob good naturedly refused to update, despite pleadings from club President after President. Rarely did a post-speaker Q&A session take place without Bob asking the first question – a ritual that, sadly, has ended too soon.
Prior to Horace’s eulogy, we had the usual pre-gavel meet-and-greet, with Dan Fenocchio generously providing the wine, and Paul (the youngest Rolling) Stone tickling the ivories. Ted (bring me Snow) White offered the Thought of the Day, and Mark Huffman, shared with us another “Centennial Moment”, focused this time on the innumerable contributions that the Rotary Club of Sacramento has made to children here, and around the world, during the past 100 years. From helping to eradicate polio, to the annual funding of local programs for orthopedically challenged students via our annual Golf 4 Kids fundraiser, to our historic and continuing work with the Sacramento children’s homes, the club can be proud of its ongoing attempts to improve the lives of the disadvantaged young ones in our society.
If you’d like to continue this tradition in a life-changing way, consider joining Clayton Lee in Guatemala in the Spring, as he leads a local assemblage that will assist in the international Rotaplast effort by helping doctors repair the cleft palates of 100 to 150 children whose only hope is Rotary. To get an idea of how our club rolls, we were $12,000 short in our funding requirement to make the trip – a shortage that was made up in about 3 minutes during the meeting. First off, the ever generous Bill Stone (with due credit to his lovely bride, Millie) offered up $6,000 if the club would raise the same. Just the Rotarians in attendance who offered $500 or more (too many to mention here) covered that bogey, with dozens more offering amounts of $100 to $250. If you’d like to be a financial backer, make a check out to the Sacramento Rotary Foundation (put Rotaplast in the memo line), and send it to the Rotary office.
Speaking of the Rotary office, there will be a new President’s picture hanging there in a couple of years, as we will once again be led by the fairer sex in 2014-15 in the person of Susan Sheridan, who was announced today as our President Elect-Elect, manning (or, womaning, in this case) the gavel after Thom Gilbert. A more deserving candidate from either gender will not be found – congratulations, Susan!
Ok, in the “interesting Rotary child” category, NPR correspondent Corey Flintoff (son of Ed Karnacki) is a noteworthy member. Corey needs to move over one chair, however, because to that list we must add today’s guest speaker, Holly Lohuis, who was introduced by her father and fellow Rotarian, Miles Snyder.
Holly is a Rio Americano High and UC Santa Barbara grad, as well as a marine educator, but what sits her next to Corey is that, for the past 17 years, she’s been the dive partner of Jean Michel Cousteau (son of the legendary Jacques), and has traveled the world to see what’s going on under its oceans (for more info, click on http://www.oceanfutures.org/about/speaking-engagements/holly-lohuis).
Providing a multi-media presentation full of interesting sea life, Holly’s bigger message focused on the factors that are affecting our ocean ecologies today, including over-fishing (90% of the ocean’s large fish [sharks, tuna, etc.] have been killed), climate change (which is altering the chemistry of the ocean), and pollution (267 species of sea life are being adversely impacted by plastics pollution that is making its way into the ocean gyres). This hometown girl has definitely made good – ask Miles about her next time you see him.
The always-popular Daughter’s Day is next Monday, so RSVP to the office if you plan on attending (head count is vital on this one, as it’s always the biggest meeting of the year). JBW