Your Weekly Get Up & Go Has Been Updated!

The stage was set, the piano keys were having their ups and downs, and Dave Morse’s songs were all UP! But oddly, the Oddfellows crew must have been a bit and a mite and a bite down, as they were slow with the food for February’s Student-of-the Month celebration.  So President Rose Cholewinski, after a patient wait for serving pans to fill, invited the students to partake, and then take their plates and places on the stage.  After Rose’s warning to unwary guests that we would warble strange songs, our voice leader Chuck Snipes proved Rose’s point as all joined in.  Post music, Rose instructed the staged students to keep eating while she regaled us with praise regarding our club’s recent award as Davis’ non-profit of the year, announced at the recent Chamber of Commerce dinner with our own Carolyn Stiver as incoming Chamber Chair.  Congratulations Carolyn! (And Us…)

 

With students still eating, Rose turned matters over to Nancy Storm, who began by noting the flyers on all tables for the Kroener Family Scholarship opportunity; once again, Roy and Cynthia are offering college help for a deserving high school senior in Davis. Hopefully the many high school teachers with us can encourage these applications, and thanks Roy and Cynthia, for your generosity!  Nancy lauded Rotary and included several new lines, including one claiming that the originators met in 1905 at a ‘rotary intersection” in Chicago, hence our world-renowned name.  Fact-checkers?? Another line sounded like “the 4-way test is dissuaded at every Rotary meeting around the world” but absent reporter earwax, “dissuaded” was probably “displayed.” 

 

By the time Nancy finished her polished sales pitch, our eight students had polished off their breakfasts, so the awards began.   Da Vinci was conspicuously absent; Principals Rob Kinder (DSIS), Tom McHale (DHS), and Christina Buss (King High) and some of their teachers introduced our eight students; remarkably, we had the same “first” twice. 

 

Both DHS and King had a student-of-the-month selected by two teachers.  This raises a key question: Will those two have “by Jim Belenis” photos in the Enterprise twice?  If so, will they have two different mug shots?  Stay tuned…and kudos to all the students!

 

After the standing ovation, gauntlet line, and routine milling about, Rose ushered in… Announcements!  Vanessa Errecarte began by noting that it’s the season for our annual Jay Gerber Young Leader Award; please send her nominations, and then volunteer to help her “assemble kits” on March 23 (confession- your reporter went fuzzy at this point, can’t document the details, doesn’t think kittens are involved, and expects a near-future reporter will provide those details).   Next, Larry Greene noted that dollars are already flowing for our annual March Madness fundraiser, in which you can win big, but not by selecting the college basketball team of your choice; our game is chancier than that!  Thanks Joe Uzarski for collecting those “Jacksons” (how many knew this is slang for a $20 bill?).  Larry’s sidekick Bruce Work also claimed to be extracting these investment/donations.

 

On this “delayed service” morning, Jonathan Clay announced an opportunity to express opinions about our breakfast food preferences (he specifically mentioned bacon).  Is there a democratic poll going?  Consult the good JClay to see where this opening leads. Nancy Storm announced that tickets are selling out for Yolo Crisis Nursery’s March 16th Crab Feed fundraiser.  Messy, but there are bibs; and it’s a great cause with great eats! Don’t miss out; contact Nancy to claw your way in.  Chuck Snipes, advancing to the same weekend (you can have two-in-a-row charity dinners out!) noted that the Ides of March are fast approaching, with 3/15 set for our Sunrise Rotary 10^th Annual Trivia Challenge. 

 

Rose ended the announcement run with kind words for Lori Raineri, who hosted the recent “new member social.”  A show of hands indicated that about half our membership joined this party on a rainy afternoon. Thanks Lori!  But wait…she is actually and also today’s sergeant…what dirt did she excavate at that party?  She made a kindly start, with more “Chamber kudos” for our award, then sweet thoughts for Patriots fans; but there were subtle (and not-so) warnings, about “winners and losers”, and about how “topical and timely” are our devoted sergeants.  Naturally, the membership was quite on edge while benign Happy Bucks were collected from:

 

Despite the early warnings, Sergeant Lori only had one “post Happy Bucks” trick up her sleeve, related to the $2 bills discreetly deposited on each table at the sergeant’s outset.  Lori instructed the “best engineer” at each table to origami-fold the lucky bill into a paper airplane.  Then, each table was commanded to choose a crack test pilot, capable of strolling to the front and lofting the paper craft into a tiny basket about 4.2 paces away.  Some fluttered, some flipped, and a few flew!  Tables were fined based on how many tries were required.  It was fun and funny, and contributors were generous.  Thanks Lori, for your high-flying creativity!  As Lori vacated the stage, Keith Watenpaugh briefly stood in with a professional radio-voice reinforcement to Chuck Snipes earlier Trivia Night announcement- after both these barrels, who can resist? 

 

Before relinquishing the floor to Dave Heard, Lori stirred us with the announcement that Gretchen Peralta will be guest president in charge of next week’s meeting- a step back in history?  And then, Dave staged our Draw-of-the-Day, worth $332; Tim Daleiden’s #867 won him a free breakfast.  How far from the joker was Tim’s two of spades?  Only Dave knows.

 

And so we strolled out, starting our personal countdowns to next Friday’s post-Valentine breakfast with Gretchen.