Home Page | Rotary Club of Tehachapi

Our club meets every Thursday at Kelcy's Restaurant, except on holidays and the 5th Thursday of the month. Guests are welcome! Please contact our Club President, Jennifer Palakiko, at 661-972-8269 for information about the Rotary Club of Tehachapi.

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Today's Speaker - Chris Scottie

Our speaker this week is Chris Scottie. Chris owns Discover Tehachapi Tours and is an avid beekeeper. Chris is also the president of the Tehachapi Tourism Commission. Today Chris spoke with us about the art of beekeeping.

Chris brought with him the tools of the trade. While many beekeepers will dress in full coveralls, Chris prefers a beekeepers jacked. He put it on and showed us how the jacket is designed to keep him safe from bee stings. Which is a good thing since Chris is apparently allergic to bees, Yikes!

We learned that bees are feral and cannot be trained. It’s the beekeeper’s job to keep the bees happy so they don’t want to leave.

The European honeybee is the only bee to produce honey on scale. They are not native to North America and can have as many as 120K bees in a colony. They are great pollinators.

Honeybees store honey to eat during the winter, they do not hibernate.

We also learned a lot about the queen bee. A queen can lay from 1000 to 1500 eggs a day. They cannot defend themselves or feed themselves. They are dependent on their hive to take care of them.

Bees are defensive, not offensive. Unlike African Bees they will not attack unprovoked.

Honeybees will die after they sting so they are motivated not to attack. If they come to you, just remain calm, they are just looking and will move on.

Chris offers his pure unprocessed honey seasonally at Simply Perfect Gifts in Tehachapi.

Anya Norton - New Member Induction

New Member Induction: A new member was inducted into the club this morning. Anya Norton was sponsored into the club by Jerry Munson. Anya and husband Bill moved to Bear Valley Springs in 2019 and boy has she been a busy bee. To get to know her new neighbors she started a Potluck group. It has grown to 50 people and in order to continue growing she may be starting a second group. She is also a member or on the board of the BVS Cultural Arts Association, the BVS Wildlife Coalition, and The Astronomy Club and is a hot air balloonist. President Jennifer Palakiko provided Anya with her new member kit and welcomed her officially into the club.

Today's Speaker

Today's speaker is water evangelist Greg Chick. Greg is a Rotarian from The Ramona Rotary Club. He works alongside the Global Water Works, a 501c3, to help bring safe drinking water to areas where they still carry water back to their village.

Many villages need to carry water three to four kilometers back to their village. Greg designs the system then teaches them how to build the infrastructure to passively harvest water from gutter systems and store in storage tanks. These are simple to install structures, and the supplies can be found at any hardware store.

We learned how the seemingly simple structures to install can be life changing to these rural communities. They are taught maintenance of their water system and purification. These tanks, which can store 1000, 2000 or 3000 gallons are installed alongside a structure. Rainwater is collected from gutter systems from the roof and filtered before entering the tanks. The W.H.O says the average person should have 3.1 gallon per person per day for drinking and cooking needs.

You can learn more about this work by visiting www.globalwaterworks.org

Today's Meeting

On Thursday September 5th President ____________ lead the weekly meeting of the Tehachapi Rotary Club.

FLAG SALUTE: The salute to our national flag was done by____________.

GREETER: Today’s greeter was ______________.

INSPIRATIONAL MOMENT: Today’s duty for our weekly Inspirational Moment was assigned to ___________________

Visitors: – _________________ .

Welcome to the Rotary Club of Tehachapi

Rotary Club of Tehachapi was founded in June of 1987 and serves the local area through its volunteer members efforts. The club follows the Rotary motto of “Service Above Self” in doing good things for our community. Our Ongoing community service projects include:

· Annual Ladies Tea – this June event provides scrumptious desserts and tea for those ladies wishing to dress up and socialize at Wood's Pavillion.

· Youth Service – We sponsor and support the Interact Clubs of Tehachapi High School and of Valley Oaks HS. These groups are designed to provide youngsters with leadership and good citizen training, they provide community help projects throughout the school year. Rotary provides opportunities for high school Interact students to attend Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) camp each year. The four day immersion in leadership training and citizenship building takes place in Ojai each April. A few weeks before, KernYES is held at the Taft Fort. KernYES is a one-day leadership experience.

· Literacy Project – The club provides a special personalized story book to kindergarten kids at all Tehachapi Unified Elementary Schools. The book gives the children a fun start with reading and helps them develop an interest in education.

· Breakfast with Santa – in conjunction with other local service clubs, we host the annual Breakfast with Santa for the children in our community. We serve juice, milk, coffee, pancakes and sausage and created an opportunity for a free picture with Santa.

· International Projects – Each year the club selects a project to assist people in a foreign country. Our Rotarians travel to Tijuana, Mexico, to help at an orphanage. We've raised funds in association with the Thousand Oaks Rotary Club to provide a Van for the Orphanage. We are also participating in a Global Grant for polio eradication...Our Fashion Show fund raiser has been key in supporting polio eradication. In 2021 we organized a community benefit concert that raised $12,000 for Ukraine refugees.

· Community Support – throughout each year the Tehachapi Rotary Club takes the initiative to assist locally wherever possible. We were there to help after large fires. We support the Salvation Army’s ‘Coats for Kids’, aided their back to school clothing drive and shoe drive and participated in Christmas bellringing. We started the 12 Days of Christmas food drive three years ago that has reached over 200 families in need. Monthly our members team up with Platinum Realty for one week and serve recipients of Meals on Wheels.

Vocational support - One day each month Rotarians skilled in sewing teach a 3 hour class to those interested.

While serving our fellow citizens, the Tehachapi Rotary Club embraces the concept of fellowship and good fun. Our activities include regular social events where we come together to celebrate our friendships and our successes. Our club is made up of business, professional and community leaders.