We are officially down to the wire! Get your last ticket sales into your team captain no later than this Thursday, and get ready for the Super Raffle Grand Celebration April 23rd at the Cambria Hotel in Rohnert Park! Cocktails and social time at 4:00, Opening Remarks by President Jennifer at 4:45 and a recap of the prizes and how they will be awarded after that by John Jones, and then the ticket drawings at 5:15 starting with “consolation” prizes and ending up with the Grand Prize! The drawing will be followed by dinner at 5:45, no charge! Sign up to attend the event on the Club’s website (https://portal.clubrunner.ca/4124 Calendar pulldown, click “Register” on the left). Bring a guest or two (no more than two please), preferably those who bought scads of tickets! See you at the party!!
Chef owner of Valette’s in Healdsburg and recently opened the highly acclaimed “The Matheson” on the square in Healdsburg.
Chef Dustin Valette began his restaurant career at the age of thirteen washing dishes at Catelli’s in his hometown of Geyserville, California. Two years later he took an apprenticeship at Chateau Souverain, a Francis Ford Coppola Estate, where he worked under Executive Chef Martin Courtman, – beginning the twenty-plus year culinary journey toward his dream of opening a restaurant dedicated to showcasing the rich bounty and beautiful ingredients of his Sonoma County roots.
Valette honed his craft in some of the most celebrated restaurants on the West Coast, including the Michelin-starred Aqua in San Francisco and Napa Valley’s Bouchon. Additional credits include Hokus at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Honolulu, a five-star, five-diamond property; the exclusive North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village, California; and VOX Restaurant & Wine Lounge in Henderson, Nevada. Most recently, Valette spent six years as Executive Chef of Dry Creek Kitchen, a Charlie Palmer restaurant in downtown Healdsburg. At Dry Creek Kitchen, he gathered great acclaim for the strong relationships he cultivated with local farmers and purveyors in order to provide the restaurant with the area’s freshest and most unique ingredients. Valette was known for his exceptional ability.
Keisuke Kogi: My Rotary Life and Relationship Between Santa Rosa and Kagoshima
Our very special guest speaker for April 7, 2022, was Keisuke Kogi, from the Rotary Club of Kagoshima West. Mr. Kogi’s presentation was “My Rotary Life and Relationship Between Santa Rosa and Kagoshima.” Mr. Kogi has had a long and varied career in business in Kagoshima and is a founder of the Santa Rosa Kagoshima Student Exchange Program (“SRKSEP”). He is also an avid trekker who has traveled and climbed in the Himalayan Mountains, Swiss Alps, and throughout Japan.
Pictured above amongst the rest with Shauna Lorenzen, the Eakin boys and Childs twins
There are 2,287 Rotary Clubs and 88,328 Rotarians in Japan. Kagoshima is in District 2730, with 68 clubs and 2,314 members. Kagoshima is located at the southern tip of the Japanese Islands. Keisuke joined Rotary in 1967. One of his favorite Rotarian service projects was in 2005, when his club collaborated with Santa Rosa Sunrise and the Tsuruoka Rotary Club and gave 33 cows to a poor village in Nepal. Nepal is a very poor country in which children often die young and the average life expectancy is 50. The project was intended to improve children’s health by improving nutrition.
Another favorite project of his was GSE (Group Study Exchange – a discontinued program), in which he took 4 young members to the U.S., visiting Rotary Center in Evanston, Metropolis, and even attending a St. Louis Cardinals game!
Keisuke also discussed the relationship between Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary and Kagoshima. The relationship has its roots in 1865 when 19 Japanese students traveled to England. One of the students, Kanae Nagasawa, expanded his trip to Scotland and the U.S., ending up making prize-winning wines in the Fountaingrove area of Santa Rosa. In 1983, Santa Rosan’s, Jack and Fran Harger, visited Kagoshima to discuss starting the SRKSEP program. A “sisterhood” agreement was signed between Kagoshima West and Sunrise in 1989. In the following years over 300 students have participated in SRKSEP. Santa Rosa Sunrise and Kagoshima West members have also socialized regularly over the years, and Keisuke described many gatherings between Rotarians in Santa Rosa and Kagoshima over the years. His Powerpoint photos document some of these key meetings in 1989, 2003, 2011, and 2013. Keisuke also mentioned all the hard work put in by Kagoshima members to raise over $76,000 to help Sunrise members who lost their homes during the 2017 fires.
Thank you, Keisuke for the wonderful presentation and all of your help to, and collaboration with, Sunrise Rotary over these many years. Together, we have improved the lives of so many young people from our two cities, and advanced Rotary goals around the world. Your presentation was a great reminder of how strong we can be when we work together!
On a regular basis, our resident photo pro Warren Smith, submits pictures of what is going on at the weekly meetings. You can always find the most recent pictures at the websites photo journal called "Meeting Sighting" Please note that all the meeting photos for the entire Rotary year are at this location with the most recent on the last page.
Thanks for all the great pictures Warren!Link to Meeting Sightings. The most recent are on the last page!
In my opinion, Aries season is the most explosive of all signs; therefore, I thought it would be a great idea to talk briefly about an iconic festival that embodies fire to its fullest: Burning Man. Burning Man is an annual festival that takes place before Labor Day in the Black Rock Desert outside of Gerlach, Nevada. It embodies the arts, innovation, self-expression, and self-reliance
The concept of Burning Man originated in 1986 by a small group led by Larry Harvey and Jerry James. They met in San Francisco at Baker Beach and lit fire to an eight-foot wooden structure that resembled a man. This was lit on fire to commemorate the summer solstice. Each year it continued to grow in popularity until the police had to shut it down due to a lack of permits and a nice twist of Bay Area anarchy.
In 1991, the festival moved to the Black Rock desert, and with the help of the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), Black Rock City was born. In the beginning, it was a word-of-mouth event. Bohemians from the Bay gathered and enjoyed their freedom of expression, and braved the arid, dusty landscape of this unforgiving desert. Fire dancers and mutant vehicles and structures began to pepper the landscape. Soon the Department of Mutant Vehicles was established where participants had to register their large, fire-breathing dragon-shaped vehicles to be driven on "the playa."
As of 2019, almost 80,000 people attended the festival. The week-long adventure now has a litany of music, art, outlandish customs, themed buildings and experiences, drugs, dancing, profanity, beauty, eroticism, creative insanity, and an intense sense of community. The original gangsters of this movement bemoan that it is now heavily influenced by celebrities, social media influencers, and the Silicon Valley elite; however, creativity and innovation are still key focal points. If you can imagine it-it's probably going to be at Burning Man.
On the last Saturday of the festival, The Man is lit on fire. The ceremony puts the fireworks on the opening day of the Olympics to shame. It's a stunning display of hedonism at its finest. The following Sunday is more somber. The Temple, which pays tributes to lost loved ones is lit on fire, and those grieving release their tears and let go of some of the heaviness of their losses.
I grew up in Reno and saw how Burning Man evolved. I had the opportunity to go in 2011 with my mom and her Rotary Club. It was an experience I will never forget. I am thinking perhaps Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary needs to do a change of venue and go to Burning Man this September. Grab your bicycle and your zany outfit! Also, clothing is optional. Who is with me?!
In no particular order; Jennifer Adams, Luis Esquivel, Penny Millar, Paul O’Rear, Dick & Ellen Perman, Steve and Kathleen Amend, Leroy Carlenzoli, Max Childs, Rob & Betsy Sanville, Stacy Drucker-Andress & Kevin, Olin Leasher, Steve Zwick, Susan Glowacki, Del Raby, Matthew Crooks, Shauna & Dave Lorenzen and Linda and Dick Dondanville (the Amend's neighbors who suggested we invite Nate to present at our meeting).
Saturday morning 23 Sunrise Rotarians, friends and family had a very enjoyable learning and volunteer experience at Forget-Me-Not Farm in Sebastopol. Director of Operations Nate Rathmann talked a little bit about the work of the Farm with children who have experienced abuse, and how therapy with animals (many of which had been abused or abandoned themselves) and work in the vegetable garden helps their recovery. The group was then introduced to each animal and its background story, and asked to help out with the very important task of acting as a “human wall” to move all the animals from stalls to their food (they knew exactly where the food was and weren’t going anywhere else, but we felt important………..). For the next hour and a half the group embodied “the leverage of Rotary” by clearing the area around a new hot house, laying down weed cloth and hauling in chipped gravel for groundcover, “up-potting” vegetable starts to 4-inch containers and clearing out several rows of severely over-weeded garden beds. The morning concluded by joining the animals- goats, cows, horses, llamas and sheep- in the pasture for some “Rotary bonding time”.
First order was to meet the barn animals and let them out to pasture.
Time to get to work! Our assignment was to clear the weeds around the greenhouse that The Hammer, Leroy, and crew help build to lay a weed barrier and to weed the garden beds.
After accomplishing our goal, we were all let out to pasture to spend quality time with the animals.
Forget Me Not Farm is a therapeutic haven for traumatized children and animals (and Rotarians)!
On Thursday, March 31st. We had a great turnout at the REFB! Del manned the bag tying table, keeping up with the fast paced demand of bags. Sorting potatoes and pears were Penny, Art, Brian, Jennifer A and Jennifer R (with husband Steve), Jim M, new member Matthew, almost new member Katharine, and prior member Noel Glab. The place was working at full capacity that afternoon. Great work, team!
Rotarian Randy Seeley remembers yelling "Stop the press" at least once during his long tenure at the Press Democrat. But he reports that may not be possible now. Due to falling numbers the PD is moving it's current offices to a new location 85 miles away.
the current rising dependence on digital media has been responsible for driving hundreds of Newspapers out of business. Facebook and Twitter now carry most advertisements.
A Jewish man took his Passover lunch to eat outside in the park. He sat down on a bench and began eating. Since Jews do not eat leavened bread during the eight-day holiday, he was eating Matzo, flat crunchy unleavened bread that has dozens of perforations. A little later, a blind man came by and sat down next to him. Feeling neighborly, the Jewish man passed a sheet of matzo to the blind man. The blind man handled the matzo for a few minutes, looked puzzled, and finally exclaimed, "Who wrote this nonsense?"
Friends, one of my mantras in Rotary has been do more, grow more. I am sure you are adopting this mantra. Do more, as in bigger and impactful service projects, and grow more, as in increasing our membership.
There is so much excitement across the Rotary world about our Each One, Bring One effort. Everywhere I travel, club presidents, district governors, and Rotary members — both veteran and new — express appreciation that their membership efforts are inspiring the Rotary world.
We are growing more, and I cannot wait to celebrate all of this success with you at the Rotary International Convention in Houston in June. There is still time to register and make your plans to join us. We are looking forward to a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will unite our members after far too much time apart.
As we grow more, we will have so much more opportunity to do more. April is Maternal and Child Health Month, a great opportunity for your clubs to consider what you are doing to support the health of mothers and young children. Improving access to care and the quality of care for women and children worldwide is an important focus for us and it also ties in very well with our Empowering Girls initiative. I appreciate the work being done by various clubs in this area of focus, and I would encourage you to think of ways to do more.
It has been so exciting to see Rotary members come together at the presidential conferences to share ideas about using our areas of focus to bring about big, lasting change in the world. The past and upcoming presidential conferences are looking at our new area of focus — the environment — and how our work to protect our planet must support our efforts to grow local economies, especially in places with the greatest poverty. I also had the honor to speak at the 26th United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, known as COP26. This important meeting brought together nearly 100 heads of state and government over a two-week period to set new targets for fossil fuel emission. My call to action was to restore mangroves, a crucial ecosystem that can mitigate the effects of climate change in coastal areas. Already, countries across the world are showing great enthusiasm for this plan.
Our survival is at stake — the damage of environmental catastrophe is already upon us — and so, too, is our ability to lift the world’s most needy out of poverty and offer them hope. We must find ways to protect our planet while sustaining the economic growth necessary to achieve our highest humanitarian goals.
This is a very exciting time in Rotary, a time when the world needs us most. As we Serve to Change Lives, remember that we are also changing ourselves. We are becoming the world’s great change-makers and peacebuilders.
The world is ready for us. It’s time to rise to that call.
What’s your Rotary moment — a time that strengthened your dedication to Rotary and confirmed you would be a lifetime Rotarian? I have had many such moments over the years, and they all had one thing in common: They showed me Rotary’s tangible power of turning our dreams of a better world into reality.
Rotary members are exceptional at it. I see that power in my own club in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and now, as Rotary Foundation trustee chair, in clubs and districts around the world.
Rotary members from Austria, Germany, Nigeria, and Switzerland are realizing their dream to help mothers and children in Nigeria. In partnership with several organizations, they have launched a multiyear, large-scale project to reduce unwanted births and drive down rates of maternal and child mortality. This project, once a vision of a few members but now the recipient of Foundation global grants, is training doctors, nurses, and midwives throughout all 36 states of Nigeria.
Every great project begins in the minds of our members. You are the ones who see schools where adolescent girls have stopped attending because of the lack of private bathrooms. You are the ones who see families facing food shortages, the children who can’t read, and the communities with health problems caused by mosquitoes. You not only see these things, but because you are in Rotary, you also do something about them.
And because of that engagement, over the past decade, the amount of money the Foundation has awarded for global grants has grown by more than 100 percent. As more and more Rotarians have become involved, to keep our grants going we have had to adjust and stretch those funds by reducing overhead and by other means. The reason is simple: While the need for these projects is increasing and grant participation is also on the rise, annual giving from Rotary members has stayed relatively static for years.
Quite simply, we need more clubs and individuals to give to the Annual Fund to help keep our district and global grants thriving. This year, we set a goal of raising $125 million for the Annual Fund. We can’t realize your Rotary dreams or those of your fellow members without everyone’s support.
Remember: It’s not about the money, but about what our money can do. I am a firm believer that when we all give what we can, both as clubs and individuals, to the Foundation every year, we take another step toward making the world a better place.
Imagine the Rotary dreams we could make real if every member and every club got together and made a gift to our Foundation today. That would be quite a Rotary moment — for all of us.
In recent years, Rotary clubs in Grande Prairie, Alberta, have teamed with Rotaractors in semiannual collection drives that have netted basic clothing items for the needy. In late October, the Rotary Club of Grande Prairie joined with fellow Grande Prairie clubs — Swan City, Sunrise, and After Five — and the Rotaract Club of Grande Prairie to recruit a local junior league ice hockey team for a “Tighty-Whitey Toss”: Fans showered the rink with new packages of socks and underwear to celebrate the Grande Prairie Storm’s first goal just a few minutes into a game against the Blackfalds Bulldogs. Local institutions serving homeless people distributed the articles a few days later. “We collected over 160 gallons of socks and underwear from this event alone,” among the 12,000 pieces taken in during the month, says Carrie Sandboe, a member of the Rotary Club of Grande Prairie. “They are the most-needed staple clothing but are the least-donated items to centers.”
Mexico
After flooding in July triggered landslides that inundated the mountainside community of El Colli, the Rotary Club of Zapopan rushed to give clothing and other goods to more than 100 families displaced by the disaster. “We provided pantry items, about 50 bags of clothes, and soap, antibacterial gel, and other items for each family,” says Ramón Díaz Mendoza, the club’s president. The effort, mobilized by seven club members within a week of the deluge, was assisted by individuals from the local community. They delivered the items to El Colli, which lies on the outskirts of Guadalajara, about a 20-minute drive from the club base. The response was one of 13 initiatives tackled by the 17-member club in 2021. Predominantly centered on helping the Indigenous Wixárika people, the ambitious lineup included regular donations of food to those villagers and 12 computers donated to two schools serving the children of farm laborers, along with a continuing program to feed homeless people.
Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Sunrise - Founded June 30, 1986
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items for the needy. In late October, the Rotary Club of Grande Prairie joined with fellow Grande Prairie clubs — Swan City, Sunrise, and After Five — and the Rotaract Club of Grande Prairie to recruit a local junior league ice hockey team for a “Tighty-Whitey Toss”: Fans showered the rink with new packages of socks and underwear to celebrate the Grande Prairie Storm’s first goal just a few minutes into a game against the Blackfalds Bulldogs. Local institutions serving homeless people distributed the articles a few days later. “We collected over 160 gallons of socks and underwear from this event alone,” among the 12,000 pieces taken in during the month, says Carrie Sandboe, a member of the Rotary Club of Grande Prairie. “They are the most-needed staple clothing but are the least-donated items to centers.”
clothes, and soap, antibacterial gel, and other items for each family,” says Ramón Díaz Mendoza, the club’s president. The effort, mobilized by seven club members within a week of the deluge, was assisted by individuals from the local community. They delivered the items to El Colli, which lies on the outskirts of Guadalajara, about a 20-minute drive from the club base. The response was one of 13 initiatives tackled by the 17-member club in 2021. Predominantly centered on helping the Indigenous Wixárika people, the ambitious lineup included regular donations of food to those villagers and 12 computers donated to two schools serving the children of farm laborers, along with a continuing program to feed homeless people.