Craft Talks Showcase New Members
by Don Jung
Val Pagett started the meeting with the flag salute and the thought of the day. “We are continually faced with great opportunities, which are brilliantly disguised as unsolvable problems.” – from Margaret Mead.
Guests included Bret Hadley’s son, and Lauren Forbes came as Val’s guest.
World Polio Day will be October 24 and President Cedric Tuck-Sherman showed a video showcasing this day. He also announced the allocation of our District Grant funds ($2,000) to the Rotary Club of Lawndale in support of their “STARTlab” project which celebrates storytelling and hands-on art in the Lawndale elementary school libraries. Shirley Giltzow, President of Lawndale Rotary, and Erin Blad-Johnson, Lawndale Library Media Specialist, explained how the library is making the community a showcase with stories and art for young students.
Val Pagett did her craft talk and discussed her background as a varsity swimmer and team captain at the University of Hawaii, where she majored in anthropology and Spanish. She was also a member of the USC Trojan Swim Club. She joined the Peace Corps, working in Cambodia in 2013 and 2014.
She calls herself a strategist, negotiator and therapist in her real estate work with the Lauren Forbes Group. She is the Secretary and Director of Games for our local Hometown Fair and is an alumna of the Leadership Manhattan Beach group.
Bret Hadley gave his craft talk, beginning with growing up in Minnesota on a farm and deciding he couldn’t wait to move to a warmer climate. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1982 and got his MBA at UCLA in 1988. He has been married to JoAnn for 37 years and has three children.
His consumer products career had him work with ten different companies over the years, and he was CEO for seven of those companies including Mattel, Lynx Outdoor Kitchens, and Robers Beauty where he helped sell the company and retired this past July.
Deb Robertson and Rita Crabtree-Kampe talked about their Floating Doctors project, where they went to rural areas of Panama to bring maternal aid and child health care as well as veterinary services. They worked on disease prevention and treatment and helped in medical clinics on the diabetic crisis in that community.
Happy Dollars were celebrated for the club Women & Wine event, the Jimmy Miller Surf Fiesta, and P.S. I Love You. Patti Panucci and Vinny Fazzino were in the news, and Walt and Priscila Kasha, Wade Austin, Jim Hunter, and Mark Shoemaker sent photos from their foreign travels. Norm Levin and Bruce Greenspon protested at No Kings, John Acker met Mark Cuban at the Forbes Summit in Las Vegas, Ted Iantuono attended a Rotary meeting in Denton, Texas, and Jan Rhees and Nina Patel enjoy a meal with Dave and RL Peters at Stecca Taverna. Finally, successful dine-arounds were hosted by Herb & Nancy Trachtenberg, Kate and Mike Orroth, Cedric and Gretchen Tuck-Sherman, and Bill and Susan Bloomfield.
Don Jung did not win the money raffle, and the meeting was adjourned.
For more meeting photos, go to SmugMug.
Hometown Fair Wine Garden - The Rotary Way
by Editor
Once again our Rotary Club was selected to staff the always-popular Wine Garden at the MB Hometown Fair. Director of Community Service Rita Crabtree-Kampe along with co-director Nancy Vrankovic were in charge if the event. Rita reported that about 30 Rotarians volunteered, and "everyone was hustling to be sure everything ran smoothly." She gave a shoutout to new member Bret Hadley for guarding ice for hours as well as Kelly Stroman and Nancy, who worked from set up to break down. Our efforts were rewarded with a $1,500 donation for our service and $800 in tips!
For more Wine Garden photos, go to SmugMug.
Women and Wine
by Editor
If I had to pick a Rotarian to host a social event and another Rotarian to organize it, I would pick Shannon Ryan and Kathleen Terry, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I was drinking vino blanco in Spain, so I couldn't attend but, as these photos show, a large crowd of women Rotarians as well as spouses and partners showed up for a fun evening. Kathleen Boochever told me she really appreciated that the invitation went out to spouses of Rotarians.
For more Women and Wine photos, go to SmugMug.
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