It was all about that action at President Kerry’s Rotarian confab this week, with all sorts of goings on going on.

The meeting started in the usual way, with Prez Kerry thanking the meeting crew, consisting of Virginia Wade, Nikki Wardlaw, and Past Prez’s Brian Van Camp and Diane Woodruff on greeter duty, Forrest Junod as wine sponsor, Steve Shiftlett on photography, and yours unruly (John Wood) as Pulse reporter.

PP Thom Gilbert gave the Thought of the Day, and then Sarah Hodge commenced with her Sergeant-at-Arms intro duties.  Bob Rosenberg was the day’s meeting sponsor, donating his time to Chris Bruno and Colleen McCartney of Capital Public Radio, which has partnered with the club to promote our upcoming Sac Century Challenge all over the public radio airwaves.

President Kerry then provided us with a quick Rotary history lesson, advising us of the founding of the first club in Chicago in 1905, the first service project (installing public toilets in Chicago in 1907), the Rotary Foundation kickoff (think Paul Harris donations) in 1917, launching Polio Plus in 1980, and the welcoming of the first woman Rotarian in 1987 (many decades too late, but at least she escaped the toilet installation project).  And for you space junkies, the highest altitude a club banner ever reached was courtesy of Rotarian Frank Borman, an Apollo 8 astronaut who in 1968 took a Rotary banner along as he orbited the moon.

After some Rotary tithing, Prez Kerry called for announcements, and that’s when things got busy, starting with PP Bobby Reed, who encouraged everyone to get involved with our Sac Century on October 4th, so traipse on over to www.sacramentocentury.com, click on the “Volunteer” link, and join your fellow Rotarians in making this year’s event another success (volunteer opportunities abound, from Friday set-up to Sunday take-down, so pick a good day or three that works for you). Of particular note, consider the free Rotary workouts taking place at California Moving Systems on Sunday morning, when we unload the trucks.

Jamie Furlong and Clayton Lee had updates for us on the global water projects that our own Club leads the Rotary world in, with Jamie advising about the $1 million grant that the Club received – courtesy of those gangsta grant riders, Maggie Hopkins and John Phair -- for our Honduras water project, while Clayton was just back from Guatemala, where an $850,000 Rotary project was just completed, and now brings fresh, clean water to 15,000 residents there.  For you newer members, our Club is, literally, the Rotary world leader in water, courtesy of the tireless work of Clayton and John and friends through the years, with new energy now being added by Maggie, Jamie and other fine Rotarians.  So, if you want to impact the world, this is your committee.

Speaking of the world, President-Elect Paul Keefer is looking for fellow travelers to journey halfway around it for the 2026 Rotary International conference next June in Taiwan.  See Paul for details.

Rotary After Dark! Closer to home, mark your calendars for September 30th, 4:30 – 7:00 p.m. at the SacYard Community Taphouse at 33rd Street & Stockton Blvd. in East Sac for our first “Rotary After Dark” event of the year, featuring special guest Dick Osen, with the Rotary Roadies rockin’ the joint. The RSVPs are flowing in, so sign up via the Rotary website calendar.

After the litany of announcements, we got to know two Rotarians better – that tireless philanthropist and Rotary event attendee, Dee Hartzog (you’ll likely see Dee at SacYard), and newer member, Michael Mui, who came to know Rotary by riding in one of our Sac Century Challenges.  Now that’s proof of concept, y’all.

For the final event announcement of the day, we welcomed guest speaker and restaurateur, Brad Cecchi, owner of the Michelin-recognized Canon restaurant, and the Franquette restaurant in West Sacramento. 

While the gathered throng wanted to know about his restaurants in the Q&A, Brad devoted his speech to the Terra Madre Americas food festival taking place in Sacramento (at and around the Convention Center) the weekend of September 26th thru the 28th.  This is a huge deal, and a big score for Sacramento in the international food scene, as over 150,000 visitors from around the world are expected to descend upon our fair city to celebrate international food and cooking, from the North Pole to Antarctica and everywhere in between.

This event happens in America only every other year, and it only happens in Sacramento (for the next 10 years, at least), and is like Farm to Fork on massive steroids, so plan to join Brad and 150,000 of his closest friends at the end of September (see https://terramadreusa.com/ for details).

Join us for lunch next week as freshman City Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum will share his vision for our community.

There you have it, fellow Rotarians – plenty to put on your Rotary calendar, so get involved!