Meeting Recap May 3 2010
Posted by John Wood
Last Meeting...
Well, if you weren't at this week's meeting, you didn't miss much. I mean, I'm sure that wherever you were on Monday, it was much more interesting than the Rotary confab, which featured only Liberians, and Monks, and buildings made of medieval sacred stones, and huge donations to the club - you know, just the usual Rotary drudgery.
After the wine reception, President Beverly (Somebody bid on that collectible football I donated or there's going to be trouble) Brautigam called the meeting to order, and then the First Dude (known in lesser quarters as Hal Bartholomew) announced the hundred or so guests invited by Mike O'Brien, before we enjoyed a nail biter of a contest for furthest visiting Rotarian, as our East Sac guest was edged out narrowly by Augustus Flomo, of Liberia.
Augustus popped in to swap a flag with Prez Beverly, and to thank us for our district-wide World Community Services effort, which has involved teaming with in-country Rotary clubs to train Liberians to grow and mill rice so that they can feed themselves at a fraction of the cost of the United Nations food program. If you'd like to get involved with our Rotary World Community Service committee, call on her honor, Kim (I sailed through my Senate confirmation hearing, how about you?) Mueller.
After the ever-generous John Finegan donated his 3 minutes of Meeting Sponsor prime time to fellow Rotarian, Ed Manansala (Superintendent of the St. Hope Schools), we heard from the committee announcers, one of whom was Ken (all Rotary, all the time) Noack, Jr., who serves as Foundation Committee Chair when not wearing his President-Elect-Elect hat. Ken advised that, to kick off the Foundation's planned giving program, the gentlemanly Bill Stone (with due credit to Millie, of course) had recently donated $128,428.47 to the Foundation (apparently, Bill likes his numbers big but not round). What a tremendous gift to the club, Bill and Millie - thank you from all of us.
Ok, people, crunch time has arrived at Bids For Kids. Co-Chairs Jeff Curcio and Susan Sheridan, as well as their army of committee members, have been working tirelessly for months, and now it's time for the rest of us to step up. Go to the online auction site and buy something (particularly Beverly's football - or there's going to be trouble), hit the "donate cash" button and just give money to the cause or, best yet, spend 1/1,352nd of what Bill and Millie gave ($95 for those without a calculator) and buy a ticket to the event. Watching Walter (I'll sell it all) Dahl go into his auctioneer hyper-drive is worth the ticket alone. Also, if Beverly's pigskin is not your thing, buy one of Ed Weidner's paintings, or join the Frischs and the Hester/Foords on the ever-popular dive bar tour (you might just meet your life mate inside one of those fine establishments!).
We had tandem guest speakers this week, as Robert McMullin followed Fr. Paul Mark Schwan. The latter spoke of his life as a monk at the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina (20 minutes North of Chico), while Robert described the 75-year, and 1,000 mile trek, of a warehouse full of medieval, sacred stones, that were once a Chapter House in a monastery in Spain in the 12th century, and are being reconstructed into an identical edifice at Fr. Mark's monastery, making it the oldest building in the United States (in terms of construction materials), not three hours from us. Go to www.sacredstones.org and read more about it - it's quite a tale.
Other than that, nothing much happened this week at Rotary. No meeting next Monday (Jeff and Susan will be busy counting the money), but show up on the 17th, as Dan Lungren stops by for another visit.
- JBW
After the wine reception, President Beverly (Somebody bid on that collectible football I donated or there's going to be trouble) Brautigam called the meeting to order, and then the First Dude (known in lesser quarters as Hal Bartholomew) announced the hundred or so guests invited by Mike O'Brien, before we enjoyed a nail biter of a contest for furthest visiting Rotarian, as our East Sac guest was edged out narrowly by Augustus Flomo, of Liberia.
Augustus popped in to swap a flag with Prez Beverly, and to thank us for our district-wide World Community Services effort, which has involved teaming with in-country Rotary clubs to train Liberians to grow and mill rice so that they can feed themselves at a fraction of the cost of the United Nations food program. If you'd like to get involved with our Rotary World Community Service committee, call on her honor, Kim (I sailed through my Senate confirmation hearing, how about you?) Mueller.
After the ever-generous John Finegan donated his 3 minutes of Meeting Sponsor prime time to fellow Rotarian, Ed Manansala (Superintendent of the St. Hope Schools), we heard from the committee announcers, one of whom was Ken (all Rotary, all the time) Noack, Jr., who serves as Foundation Committee Chair when not wearing his President-Elect-Elect hat. Ken advised that, to kick off the Foundation's planned giving program, the gentlemanly Bill Stone (with due credit to Millie, of course) had recently donated $128,428.47 to the Foundation (apparently, Bill likes his numbers big but not round). What a tremendous gift to the club, Bill and Millie - thank you from all of us.
Ok, people, crunch time has arrived at Bids For Kids. Co-Chairs Jeff Curcio and Susan Sheridan, as well as their army of committee members, have been working tirelessly for months, and now it's time for the rest of us to step up. Go to the online auction site and buy something (particularly Beverly's football - or there's going to be trouble), hit the "donate cash" button and just give money to the cause or, best yet, spend 1/1,352nd of what Bill and Millie gave ($95 for those without a calculator) and buy a ticket to the event. Watching Walter (I'll sell it all) Dahl go into his auctioneer hyper-drive is worth the ticket alone. Also, if Beverly's pigskin is not your thing, buy one of Ed Weidner's paintings, or join the Frischs and the Hester/Foords on the ever-popular dive bar tour (you might just meet your life mate inside one of those fine establishments!).
We had tandem guest speakers this week, as Robert McMullin followed Fr. Paul Mark Schwan. The latter spoke of his life as a monk at the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina (20 minutes North of Chico), while Robert described the 75-year, and 1,000 mile trek, of a warehouse full of medieval, sacred stones, that were once a Chapter House in a monastery in Spain in the 12th century, and are being reconstructed into an identical edifice at Fr. Mark's monastery, making it the oldest building in the United States (in terms of construction materials), not three hours from us. Go to www.sacredstones.org and read more about it - it's quite a tale.
Other than that, nothing much happened this week at Rotary. No meeting next Monday (Jeff and Susan will be busy counting the money), but show up on the 17th, as Dan Lungren stops by for another visit.
- JBW