President Bev's Assembly starts new year off right!
Posted by Susan Lundy
on Jan 09, 2016
GREETER Steve Villa (substituting for next week's Tom Sutton), is owner of San Rafael Floors, a landmark business in San Rafael since 1957. Steve's thought for the day was serious, but I forgot it. I did remember his funny follow-up: "I'm opening a New Year's Resolution business. For the first two weeks it is an exercise gym and then it turns into a bar."
HAPPY NEWS FINES:
Judi Cooper, on her first try, created a GREAT roast for Christmas dinner! Stacie Strassberg visited her Mom in Portland over the Holidays and enjoyed seeing her sister for the first time in two years. Susan Lundy went to the Asian Art Museum annual New Years Eve bell ringing and then got a great fortune cookie to start the new year: "A ship in the Harbor is safe. But that is not why ships are built."
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
President Bev called up John Bottari, who announced that in 2015, only new cases of polio were found...a change from the 359 of 2014. We are, indeed, This Close to ending polio. John then asked Ron Gin, Chief of Staff and 5150 District Governor elect, and John Tornes, Assistant DG, to come forward and they presented the INTERNATIONAL PEACE AWARD to Cindy Stameroff, CPA, to acknowledge her contributions of more than $10,000 to the Rotary International Foundation.
MEETING DISCUSSION
Bev spoke clearly to us about the Rotary International attendance requirements, the expectations of when and how to make-up any missed meetings, the 60% minimum attendance rule, and ways to keep membership attendance high. She suggested that if you do not make another Rotary meeting (the "First and Foremost" preference since you can meet other people and learn new things), you can always grab a meeting online by just googling "Rotary e Club" and selecting one. Jeff Allen (perfect attendance for 26 years and counting) strongly advocated attending another meeting. Jim Carriere said our own bylaws require us to attend 50% of our Club meetings in every 6 month period...so you could, for example, be gone to Kona for all of February and March and still be fine if you attend regularly (your scribe's example).
Bev also spoke about her desire for us to be an "EREY" Club "Every Rotarian Every Year"...which basically requires $100 commitment to Rotary International Foundation. As John Bottari said, he and/or Tom Sutton can certainly help anyone who asks for help by showing him or her how to sign onto Rotary International (note: your Rotary membership number is on your magazine label) and set up an automatic withdrawal every month, so it is painless and seamless.
We also spent about ten seconds about where to move to when we move, and another ten seconds on the idea of substituting one breakfast meeting monthly with a service or social meeting. Bev will leave those for later discussion! Adjorned at 9:05 without the raffle being won.
Respectfully submitted, Susan Lundy