Your Weekly Get Up & Go Has Been Published

 

Started today’s meeting right on time at 7:11am.  President Rose has been a commanding presence so far and immediately took control of the meeting and kicked things off with introductions and postcards.  Apparently Tyson visited an Ice Cream Museum… sounds good but messy.  And Lori sent a postcard from Crater Lake.  In terms of announcements, the Odd Fellows will be having a “Texas Hold’m” Poker tournament on 9/29 and they only want “true poker players” – which begs the question of if you only have true poker players, who will be the marks?

 

There is a Fall Seminar coming up on 10/20.

 

We had members of the Davis Roteract club join us, Abigail and Christopher.  They gave an update later in the meeting.

 

Tim announced that October 6^th is our annual attempt at Oktoberfest.  This is the club’s largest fundraiser of the year. 

 

Jim Smith announced that Friday (past) night was the Penance Art Auction and that tickets were $40.  If Jim is involved, you know it was a good time. Speaking of which, if you want a good time, give Jim a call at 867-5309.  Just ask for Jim or Jenny.

 

Larry Greene announced that Cool Davis would be having its Cool Ride EV event at Saturday’s Farmer’s Market (this reporter stopped by and enjoyed seeing all the cool EVs.  It was definitely a charge!).

 

Stephanie asked for pie bakers for Oktoberfest.  Apparently last weeks signup sheet went AWOL (check those sneaky Sergeants) so she was hoping to recreate the previous list and add more.  Too bad this reporter can’t bake.  Speaking of Oktoberfest, they are still collecting wine bottle specimens for the auction, so make sure to donate the bottles that sat in the sun too long or were stored with the cork facing skyward.

 

Vanessa reminded the club of the Community Needs Assessment that is currently underway.  The needs assessment needs to be completed by 9/27.  Also, let Vanessa know which entities you are thinking about or talking with so that we don’t have multiple contacts, etc…

 

Cliff Shepard gave the “Im Pro Per” or some fancy Latin way of saying “Cliff was asked to tell us about himself in 2 min or less”.   Cliff by apologizing again for not introducing his wife (Julie) at his club induction (just so you know Cliff, and you probably already know this, no matter how many times you apologize you will never live this down).  As mentioned above, Cliff’s wife is Julie and they have a son Owen and a daughter Candace.  Cliff has been a pilot at United for 28 years (and since my wife was a flight attendant at United, this reporter understands what that means).  Cliff flys one of the bigger Grey Hound buses in the sky, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (as an aside, how are those lithium batteries holding up?).  Cliff came into being a commercial pilot the hard way and not the usual military route.  Cliff started flying with TWA (probably when those fancy buses in the sky had propellers).  Another fun factoid about Cliff – he is not native to the Untied States but came to us via Trinidad at the ripe old age of 14.  Wonder if there are family pictures of Cliff with dreadlocks playing a steel drum?

 

Now back to our friends at Roteract.  Abigail and Christopher came to talk to the club about their recent sojourn to the Big West Institute Conference where they learned how to engage members, do proper event planning, etc.

 

Following Roteract, Gretchen aka the enforcer took the helm of the meeting as the Sergeant of the Day.  Not sure if other club members feel the same way, but this reporter always feels like he has had a verbal prostate examine by the time Gretchen is done with her sergeant duties.  As usual, things kicked off with happy bucks.  First up was Meaghan Likes – for some reason the reporter was day dreaming or doing something else, so all the notes say is that Meaghan was happy that there was an actual printed “Get Up and Go” on the tables.  Wohoo!

 

Next, your trusty reporter tried to give happy bucks but was verbally rebuffed by Sergeant Gretchen and told to sit down, hold onto my money, and that my examine/turn at speaking was coming up.

 

Irena Asmundson gave happy bucks because she found a kindred soul, aka fellow Rotarian, who shared a mutual love of Rotary. 

 

Tim gave happy bucks (what little was left after his trip to Scotland) for the superb Scotch and Whiskey he partook in while rambling/stumbling across Scotland for his repeat trip around the sun.  And during one of his rambles, most likely while drinking both Scotch and Whiskey, he took in a Pretenders/Simple Minds concert.  Ahhh, reliving the not so glory days.

 

Now onto the fines…. Justina with Recology was fined because Recology San Francisco made the Chronicle newspaper, above the fold. 

 

Clay Brandow was fined because his daughter has big plans for YoloBarre with a new location in Davis.  Apparently Clay’s daughter will be coming to speak to the club, and there was some discussion about club members wearing workout clothes.  Luckily Gretchen took charge and told the membership to NOT wear workout attire.  This could be so fun and so bad depending on what happens.  Hopefully this will be on-par with Dr Love from the early 2000s.

 

Now back to your trusty reporter.  Sergeant Gretchen decided to revisit your reporters request to give happy bucks but flipped it into a double fine for going to Burning Man with Kira.  This then devolved into questions about returning with less clothing.  Of course your reporter lives the 4 way test, so had to answer yes to the question about returning with less clothing than was started with.  Kira apparently found the reporter’s extra clothing and took it home.  Maybe there should be a Burning Man clothing swap and fashion show at rotary some day.  Now that would be fun.

 

And finally Andrew (from South Africa) gave happy bucks for a niece that recently had a baby,  Namoi.

 

Our speaker of the day was invited by Manny Carbahal.  This reporter thought the court order baring Manny from arranging public speakers was still in place so it was a surprise when Manny made the introduction of speaker, Dr. Alan Taylor.  Dr. Taylor providing an uplifting commentary on the Risks to the Global Economy… even Dr. Taylor speculated that he might be in the wrong place – we were too happy from his perspective with singing, laughing and general good naturedness.  Dr.  Taylor’s doubts about being in the right place were due to the fact that he was the harbinger of doom and he was sure the mood of the club was about to change by the time is speech was over. The over-all question posed by the Doctor was “is this the time that we should worry” and his response was “yes”.  The current economic expansion has been going for 10 years and is the longest in history.  Unemployment peaked in 2010 but now at a historic low of around 4%.  Despite the recovery and low unemployment, the recovery growth rate is now in the 2-2.5% which is less than similar recoveries in the 80s and 90s. 

 

Dr. Taylor discussed the risks to the current recovery which centered around the emerging market economies, and specifically mentioned Turkey and Brazil.  He set China aside from this group due to its strong government and its economy not truly being an open economy.  Dr. Taylor also likened our nation’s current economic and foreign policy  principles as being more aligned with policies from the 1930s than more recent policies.  Over-all the speaker sees some dip in the economy coming.

 

The meeting finished a bit late with Clay Brandow being the draw of the day and the lucky winner of a free breakfast.