Meeting Recap for June 6, 2011
Thank you to everyone who participated in the Bids for Kids Silent Auction at the meeting. We were very successful in selling the remaining donation items. Also thank you to everyone who supported Bids for Kids this year, whether with an item donation, cash donation, being part of the committee, or giving of your time or talent to help. Thanks to one and all!
President Scot opened the meeting at 12:15 pm. The Thought for the Day was given by Kelley Moran reciting an Irish poem.
The Sponsor of the Day was McGregor Scott from Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe, LLP. McGregor’s guest was Betty Neil, the company’s office manager who spearheads the program they have to support Oak Ridge Elementary School.
Our club was honored to listen to key note speaker and long time Sacramento Bee sports reporter Ailene Voisin. Ailene has been working for the Bee for over 15 years, and is very well regarded among the nation’s top sports reporters. While she covers a host of professional sports, her passion is for the NBA, and especially for our local Sacramento Kings franchise.
Ailene traced the development of the Kings over the past decade or so and briefly discussed its future here. While she is confident the community generally supports the franchise, she worries that the current business and governmental climate here might not be the best to support the team over the long term. She noted that during her travels while covering various sporting events she has encountered many who associate Sacramento just with the Kings, and she feels the city’s overall image and “brand” as a tourist attraction would be hurt if the Kings move away. She fully endorsed the idea of trying to raise funds to develop a downtown sports and activities arena, where the Kings could host visiting teams in style, and the entire downtown area could receive a much needed boost of development dollars. Ailene spoke highly of other cities – such as Salt Lake City and San Antonio – which have been able to construct downtown arenas for their teams and have drastically improved the entire business climate in what had become stagnate urban centers.
While she was hopefully optimistic, in the end, Ailene believes that a final decision on whether the Kings move to Anaheim or remain in Sacramento may turn on the Maloofs’ overall finances and not just the team’s fiscal health or the development of a new arena.
We thank Ailene for her excellent Kings update and for her commitment to sports reporting in our area and wish her (and the Bee) the best in this difficult economic time, especially for print publications.
Our next meeting is June 13th at the Radisson Hotel. The speaker will be Rick Jennings, his topic is Fathers Project.