Heidi Luckenbach, Water Director for the City of Santa Cruz will give us a report. The Water Director is responsible for maintaining the water system's infrastructure, ensuring a reliable climate-resilient water supply, advancing environmental sustainability initiatives, and maintaining financial stability.
It was so much fun to listen to Eileen tell us about their grand adventure through Europe. They sure saw a lot of museums (I do know that my kids would not have done that)! Now, it is sad but there is no recording for her talk so... if you missed it, you need to contact her to get the highlights.
We hosted the speech contest featuring 5 students from schools in Santa Cruz. Kudos to Kira McGlasshan, Vivie Zenack, John Paul Lee, Sasha Lawler, and Daphne Bingham who all spoke to Rotary's current theme of Creating Hope in the World. The winner of the contest, Kira McGlasshan, goes on to represent our club at the area contest on March 28th. Very inspiring.
It was a nailbiter for some things and it took a while but almost all elections have been called. Santa Cruz Local is a good place to check out all the results: https://santacruzlocal.org/election/
Looking for Speakers
If you have any interesting speaker ideas, please contact Eileen Beaudry or Maureen Tapiz or fill out our Suggest a Speaker form
Recycling Sawdust
On 10/26/23, our speaker was Leslie O'Malley, Waste Reduction Manager for the City Of Santa Cruz. Well, someone had asked her about where they could recycle sawdust and she just texted me that Grey Bears accepts it to use in their composting system! So... whoever was interested in that... now you know.
Pedal The Pacific 2023 Impact Report
As most people know, our Club has been a big supporter of Pedal the Pacific. In 2017, that group began with 3 young women who wanted to make a difference about something they cared about. Today, Pedal the Pacific has impacted
over 70 alumni and raised over $1 million for anti-trafficking programs across the nation. They just released their 2023 impact report in which they delve into the past eight years of operation and showcase life-changing testimonials from alumni, highlights from beneficiaries and the debut of community grants, and much more. We hope you read it and see how Pedal the Pacific is much more than a fundraising organization, but a leadership development program that helps young women discover their inner power to make change for vulnerable populations.
Rotarians of the Month
Tom Hart and Tony Giannotti, the two intrepid chairs of our membership committee, are our Rotarians of the month! They do such a good job keeping new members informed. Frick and Frack.. take a bow!
Birthdays
Dieter Ramaekers 3/2
Fernando Tapiz 3/4
Faris Sabbah 3/6
Mary Gaukel Forster 3/10
Rebecca Zeilon 3/10
Steve Landau 3/13
Darlene de la Cerna 3/14
Mary Alsip 3/16
Wedding Anniversaries
Mary Anne Kramer-Urner 3/9 (28 yrs)
Jon Sisk 3/19 (36 yrs)
Ken Whiting 3/21 (42 yrs)
Mark Boynton 3/30 (33 yrs)
Rotary Anniversaries
Jon Sisk 3/2 (32 yrs)
George Bunch 3/14 (7 yrs)
Dave Price 3/14 (24 yrs)
Joe Ferrante 3/18 (10 yrs)
Rebecca Zeilon 3/18 (11 yrs)
Penni Bengtson 3/19 (11 yrs)
Arturo Rodriguez 3/22 (8 yrs)
Brooke Squyres 3/25 (1 yr)
More Calendar Stuff
Rotary District 5170
District Assembly: April 6
District Conference: April 26-28
March Health Awareness:
- National Nutrition Month
- National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month
- National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (3/10)
<Date info provided by the esteemed Tom Hart>
Members Corner
Nothing submitted again... If the trend continues, this section may face an untimely death:
Also, repeating this info from last time since I got like ZERO feedback (does anyone even read this? does anyone care? hello, world????):
1. Would you like a santacruzsunrise.org email? We recently bought that domain (long story) and, with that, signed up for a google for non-profits account. The account lets us have an unlimited amount of email addresses - I now use sanjay@santacruzsunrise.org; Jerry Souza will be jerry@santacruzsunrise, etc. These are all gmail accounts and it is pretty simple to have them as separate email accounts or set them up to forward to your current one. If anyone is interested in one, contact me.
2. With this google for non-profits account, we also can have google groups using our custom domain. I am thinking of using that for a message board for our club. My gut, based on experience with other similar boards, is that this will be low volume but a good place for people to ask for recommendations, put out announcements, post things to sell or ask for things to buy (which others can reply to and all can see), discuss local issues maybe and more. BTW, I have seen or talked to folks about all those - Randall had something to sell and wasn't sure how / where to post, John F sent out a Clubrunner message asking for a bike rack, I am still looking for a State Farm insurance agent... These are things we should be able to share as a networking club, no? SMH.... Clubrunner works but, IMO, is limited. Still thinking through details as in do we load everyone emails or is it an opt-in? Anyone have any thoughts? LMK...
And... to add to that, if any of our committees would like a distribution list / google group for their groups, please contact me. Can set up easily. Satellite club? Firecracker? Bike Ride? Anyone?
OK, so this is another new section... we shall see if it lasts. The idea here is to provide info on things going on with our members so we can all feel a little more connected to each other. Request for all - please feed me info, I am not that much in the know. Email or text please.
Special Olympics Polar Plunge took place on Mar 2. I'm told it was a successful event, with a good turnout from our club. Brrr... that's all I have to say.
It was also reported that the skiers did well... made it to Truckee and back in one piece.
The District fellowship-leadership kumbaya event took place the evening of March 16, wonderfully hosted by our very own John Flaniken. It was great to see such a good turnout of Santa Cruz Sunrisers - I think I counted about 15-20 there (yes, that shows you how I count). Most folks did go from there to see the Santa Cruz Warriors game, yours truly did not (had to head to the airport for a redeye to the east coast; SFO is where I am currently working on this oh so lovely newsletter).
I'm tired. Writing this while sitting in a lounge at SFO, on my way to the East Coast. I do appreciate folks reaching out with feedback - glad so many like this format and style. That said, I really need content... cannot keep making things up. C'mon folks... send me info that we can publish in this newsletter! What kind of info? Like... have you read the newsletters? If not, scroll up... Reading is, as they say, fundamental.
Cheers! and See You at a Rotary meeting (I may be on Zoom)!
~sanjay~
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