Live from Rolling Hills Estates, It’s Wednesday Night
Our Club’s fun planners, Suzy Zimmerman and Julia Parton found another wonderful location for our monthly evening offsite, this month: Bristol Farms Café.
Suzy donated the wine so she (and the wine) were well received.
The food was excellent with plenty of tasty croissant sandwiches, deserts, and salads.
The Heinz ketchup and the tabasco sauce were, in particular, memorable to this reporter.
This reporter roamed the crowd to get some scoop and quotes from attendees: Chris Stillians said, “Cheers”. Mel Schrier reported “My lips are sealed”. Jim and Pat Hartman told us of their recent trip to New Zealand where they saw one or two sheep.
Harry Kitter, Marc Mazorow and I were immersed in a lengthy cultural discussion of the great 1970s band, Mott the Hoople, including memories of their hit single “All the Young Dudes”, a song written by David Bowie, containing such memorable lyrics as “don’t wanna stay alive when you’re 25…”, considered by some (well one person) to be the best rock and roll song of all time, eclipsing even the Palos Verdes Peninsula Rotary Welcome Song (which was not written by David Bowie or performed by Mott the Hoople), and having absolutely nothing to do with Rotary and irrelevant to this report of the January 25 meeting of our Club but we needed some filler. How’s that for a run-on sentence?
Editors note: My favorite “All The Young Dudes” lines:
And my brother's back at home
With his Beatles and his Stones
We never got if off on that revolution stuff
What a drag
Too many snags
Well I drunk a lot of wine
And I'm feeling fine
Gonna race some cat to bed
Is this concrete all around
Or is it in my head
Our event was chaired by the legendary Bond, (President Allen Bond), who had a short list of announcements which kept us spell bound throughout his lecture, even though he had no Power point slides.
Allen mentioned the upcoming Asia America Youth Symphony and the Child Fund Korea Dream Orchestra performance scheduled for February 16 at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles at 7:30 PM. The Asia America Symphony Association is an exchange program featuring South Korean students. This event will be a benefit concert featuring 32 underprivileged musicians of the Child Fund Korea as they make their debut performance in the United States. Special guest vocalist, Kelly Che, will host and perform. The special guest conductor will be Maestro Seung Seok Oh. The concert will feature classical, jazz, and folk music. The DK Kim Foundation is a sponsor of this program and is offering a free ticket to each of our Club members (and to one guest of each of our members). We already have 22 members signed up. We are hoping for a full house to support these kids. Members can also make a donation, if you like. Make checks payable to the Asia America Symphony Foundation.
Greg Sparkman suggested that any of us who are Facebook members go to the South Bay Beer and Wine Festival page and like the page and share it with others to promote that event.
Audra Platz, the Director of Development and Community Relations for the South Coast Botanic Garden Foundation was in attendance at the meeting and mentioned their upcoming Sweetheart Stroll event scheduled for February 12 from 12 pm to 4 pm. This is not a Rotary event but members of our club can contact Audra (
Audra@southcoastbotanicgarden.org) if you are interested in getting 2 complementary tickets to it. Her number is 310-544-1948 ext. 103 if further info is desired. I believe beer and wine tasting is involved, so further encouragement would not seem to be necessary?
Respectfully submitted:
Allan H. Johnson (AJ)
a vocational training center for women in their community. The center provides training in different areas such computers, sewing, beauty care, dancing, cooking, and arts. The center aims to equip women with the skills they need to gain employment. Over the past six years, the center has helped more than 6000 women find jobs.
partnered with the 
held a seminar on ethics in business and governance. Professionals and youth from the community were invited to attend key note speeches and lectures from motivational guest speakers on best ethical practices.
WITH SPECIAL GUEST CONDUCTOR , MAESTRO SEUNG SEOK