IT HAPPENED THIS WEEK, September 28, 2011

By Jim Machado

The Culver City Rotary met at the historic Culver Hotel.  One of my favorite meetings for the club is the craft talks from our fellow members.  That's what we had today and the club was not disappointed with the talks from Brook Hefner and John Cluff.

President Ann started the meeting with an Invocation from Andrew Sisolak.  Bryon Mooney led the Pledge of Allegiance and Jim Machado selected "God Bless America" as the Patriotic Song.  As we sat down we were surprised with a special raffle supervised by Melissa Mooney.  Everyone was fined $4.99 and received a ticket.  The prize was a raffle ticket for the 10K and the winners were John Cluff and Bryon Mooney.

This week we had guest Rotarians from Santa Monica and Cy Pierce introduced us to Lisa Alexander and Diane Merice.  Next we had the Rotarians introduce their special guests, Joel Foreman's wife Linda, Joe Davidson's wife Suzie, and Jim Machado's wife and birthday girl Raphie.  With Raphie's introduction we had a spontaneous birthday song from Steve Frye.   Keith Jones our "Songbird" led the club with the Welcome Song.

Next on the agenda was a health update.  Hal Hanslmair, who gives the reports, had to report on himself.  Hal has had some skin cancer recently removed and is doing well.

President-elect Keith Jones went over the District events, including the District Talent Show on Nov. 5 and Cicrus Vargus on Nov. 6th

Some members say President Ann is pulling a fast one, but the District Governor has personally asked her to lead a study group to India.  In February Past President Linda Black and President Elect Keith Jones will be stepping into her shoes and running the meetings for a month.  At approximately the same time Kathy & Tony Haworth and Janet & Jerry Chabola will be visiting India on behalf of the Club to celebrate the completion of a major project supporting Indian Education in a rural setting.

It was recognition time and President Ann recognized Hal Hanslmair for being the longest continuous member of the Culver City Chamber of Commerce (55 years).  Hal then picked a number between 55 & 100, settling at $56 for his fine.  Janet Chabola volunteered a $90 fine to celebrate the birthday of her 90 year old aunt, Florence Ernst.  Aunt Florence has 14 children, 43 grandchildren, 53 great grandchildren and 3 great-great grandchildren.  Once we let those impressive population numbers sink in, it was time for the craft talks.

Brook Hefner made some of us realize what a world citizen looks like. Born in LA and educated at USC in Journalism, she was introduced to politics while in Washington and would end up working for President Clinton traveling the world and being on the team coordinating his trips. She has lived in Chile and Spain and married a Spanish film maker Vincente Perez-Martinez.  Besides her public relations business, she is currently working on Presidents Obama's re-election campaign.  In the past she has worked for NPR and FOX sports.  Brook speaks English, Spanish and French.

John Cluff is the story of a hometown boy making good.  John shared how he was helped as a youth by a local businessmen and what a difference they made in his life.  He has been in the computer business for 14 years, starting with an early career at Santa Monica Bank.  It was from his involvement with the computers at the bank that moved him into a career in technology and starting his own business, Millennium Computer Services, Inc.  In his talk John spent some time reviewing how fast technology has moved forward and how the computer is changing.  In the future John expects the computer and TV's to become one.  The computer will continue to get smaller and the books in our classrooms will be replaced by I-pads.  Look out for this brave new world. John has 3 children and is married to Joie who also helps him with his business.

As we finished our dessert of a slice of carmelized pineapple and coconut ice cream, Ann closed the meeting.

Dieter