Meeting 8/31/2016

August 31, 2016

 

Members in attendance: Judy, Don, Laurie, Janet, Linda, Joe, Julie, Cameron, Mike, Heather, Steve, Karen, Carol, Brenda, Bill, Charlie, Ralph, and Franziska. Guests: John Fisher, Ron Sekkel and Mary Ann Clare

 

Guest Speaker: Ron Sekkel

 

President Karen opened the meeting with the flag salute, introductions and Thought for the Day.

 

Announcements: Sept 14 Senior Day at the Fair and Oct 1 is the Barrel Wrap in Watsonville. Priscilla is looking for fair volunteers. Give Karen or Priscilla a call if you are available to work. Heather shared an opportunity to help at a music festival in two weeks. Heather will follow up with them and get a few of our questions answered before we commit. Launch Pad Santa Cruz and Free Books for Kids both give books to low income kids in the county. They have given away 40,000 books so far - mostly used and picked up at garage sales. Heather suggests that we might want to connect with them in order to support the Governor’s book project.

 

Detective: Don entertained us (and made lots of money for the club) with questions about the Olympics and various other topics!

 

Guest Speaker: Ron Sekkel was born in Buenos Aires, attended UCLA and recently retired after operating an accounting business in SLV. Ron has been a member of Rotary for 39 years and a member of 5 different Rotary Clubs. He has received a Rotary Citation and both he and his wife are level 2 major donors.

 

John Fisher, past governor 30 years ago, introduced us to RotaCare. John was the co-founder of RotaCare in 1988 with the first clinic opening in 1989. There are 11 clinics in the Bay Area and a new clinic will soon open in Stockton. The Santa Cruz Clinic started in 1985.

 

Ron describes RotoCare as the “safety net below the safety net.” In 2016, 27,000 individuals in Santa Cruz County do not have health care. Every person who comes to the clinic is seen and served. On Tuesday nights, volunteers set up a clinic on a first come, first serve basis. If one doctor volunteers, 12 patients are served. If two doctors come, 24 patients are served. Half of the volunteers come from local Rotary Cluba and other half include: Sister M from Dignity Health, students from local colleges and nurses from the community. RotoCare reduces the lines in hospital emergency rooms and serves those who do not have other options. President Karen presented them with a check for $500.

 

Drawing: Cameron was frustrated when he pulled that nasty Queen of Clubs!!

 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:35 followed by an ad hoc meeting to discuss writing a grant to purchase AEDs for the schools.

 

Minutes respectfully submitted by J. Haff