Meeting Notes - July 10, 2012
We met at the Hilton Garden Inn due to work being done at the regular meeting site at the Elks Lodge this week and for the remainder of the month. This week was the start of a new year and Gregg Giusiana’s reign as president. Pledge and thought for the day was given by Teri Freedman. Visiting Rotarians were: Laura Lundy, Chris Giusiana and Phil Fortino. Past Gilroy Rotarian Gary Bowe is here visiting the area from Spokane Valley. Special Guest was Tristan Prooth, son of Rotarian Charles Prooth, who is visiting from London where he has just completed Law School. Sad news shared was Steve Costa’s mother passed away and a moment of silence followed this announcement.
Past President Deanna was allowed the mike for a few moments to thank her past board and assistant showering them with gifts and love.
Kurt Michielssen was the sheriff and started the day off by calling David Cox up to buy Traci’s pasties for $5. Who knows where those have been! He used the “Best Of” from the Dispatch to have winner pay fines for winning. He then asked specific people to answer some questions. One question was, “ What animal group is a Pride?” This answer was for Brad but so many called out the answer the whole room had to pay $2! The funniest one was what is a group of Baboons called? Someone called out “Rotary!” and we all got a laugh out of that. Then the answer was announced, Congress. That was even funnier!
Gregg gave a “state of Rotary” address for his first meeting. He started it out seriously and thanking the Rotarians for voting him in. Immediately following his opening there was a peal of laughter from the back of the room (totally unrelated to what was happening in the front) and that brought laughter all the way around. At one point he held up The Organization Chart and said that our club has 25 working committees and since being a past government employee, and he’s trained to think like a bureaucrat he created a few more! A Debunking committee, Foundation committee, Vocational Service and a Historical committee. The rest of the speech was about how we are a great club but can do better in a few key areas. Club Publicity, increasing membership and his goal is 118 members from our 103 current count, upgrade ClubRunner to keep track of attendance, charitable giving image. We need to continue to support current groups while planning for some larger scale project which will have a lasting impact. He went to detail on each of these issues. In conclusion, Gregg showed a homemade video that was quite well done. It showed a statement and then clips of Marx Brothers followed. It was fun, entertaining and the whole crowd enjoyed it.
This picture is just a few of the new board members.
On August 7th the District Governor Joe Hamilton will be visiting our club. He asked that before we make vacation plans for that day to reconsider. It will be interesting and entertaining. He also asked that instead of a club gift exchange DG Hamilton wants to collect receiving blankets to be given to local hospitals. Please purchase a few blankets and bring to the meeting on the 7th or put money in the Donation jar that Brad made up. Our club goal is the purchase or give 200 blankets for our district for local hospitals.
No winners for the bone marrow raffle but Susan Valenta won the club raffle.