What an amazing opportunity to provide service! Rotarians from five Rotary District 5280 clubs joined forces with Habitat for Humanity employees and Americorp volunteers to help build 10 homes in Culver City! Participating Clubs: Culver City, Playa Venice, PV Sunset, Santa Monica, and Westchester.  Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles construction lead David gives overview of site and the days activities!  Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles construction lead Steph informs team about the order the wall frames leaning against House #2 will be lifted up to House #1. There's Jillian Alexander hamming it up in orange! | |
 High-energy team Bill & Carol Powell nail it! |  Joe Metoyer, the ever-laughing, did a great job holding wall braces so the walls could be leveled and nailed into place! |
Treasurer Drew Fleming sawing to move a house beam... Drew captures Jillian struggling to hammer nail straight so close to beam on House #1. (Once Drew demonstrated, Jillian observed it is all in the stance angle.) |  .png) |
 | Playa Venice Rotarian Hilton worked on House 2 with many from the Rotary Club of Santa Monica. |
| Habitat for Humanity site construction lead David supervises House 2 crew and gives thumbs up! |  |
.jpg) Santa Monica Rotarians pictured from left: VP Joe Metoyer, Treasurer Drew Fleming, Chuck Husting, Bill Powell, Carol Powell, Jillian Alexander  Pictured from left to right: Drew "The Goof" Fleming (RC-Santa Monica), Jerry (RC-Playa Venice), Tori Hettinger (RC-Westchester), and Steph (Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles) | |
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Dethroning was a blast!! The theme was "An Evening of Music & Song" so we had a live band, a dance instructor, great food and drink, and much silliness!  We dethroned our outgoing president, Tom Larmore, and he and his lovely wife Karon both celebrated wholeheartedly! .jpeg) It really was a fabulous year!! We are all so grateful to Tom for his amazing leadership, enthusiasm, fun and games, music, and positive outlook! And we are grateful to Karon for letting us take so much of his time and energy to run the club!  And we installed the new president, Mitchell Kraus, and his board of officers and directors! Good luck Mitch!! We know already that it's going to be a fun-filled and productive year!! Thank you to Past President Nat Trives for doing the honors! | |
 Much fun was had by all, including these wonderful women...Vicky Curtis, RoseMary Regalbuto, and Suzan Allbritton! |  And these fine gents, Bill Dawson and Rick Mateus! |
Other attendees included Grace Cheng Braun and her hubby, Ted Braun! Do you think she's ever heard any jokes about her man being brawny? ;) Along with Spyros and Donna Dellaportas... Donna Byrd, Karen Greenberg, and Karen's date... |    |
  | Lisa Alexander and John Gorman... and Tammy Andrews! |
Music & Dance Time!  The band was killer! Band members included Bonnie LaVallo, Zachary Provost, Matt Hankle, and Jon MacLennan!  Folks were encouraged to rise and shine on the dance floor, as an instructor gave them some moves!!  Looking especially beautiful in her flapper attire, and accompanied by her hubby Andy Gavin, Sharon Perlmutter Gavin enjoyed a dance too. She deserved it after all the hard work she put in planning this event!! Thank you to President-Elect Sharon and to all her committee for everything you did to make this event a huge success!! | |
June 15th was a fabulous meeting! It was SCHOLARSHIP DAY, we had wonderful guests, talked about past and upcoming service projects, and we also gave more money away in community grants as well!!  Juliet Beynon of the K-9 Connection received a check from our Community & Youth Grants Committee, presented by co-chair Melissa Dagodag! | |
 Thank you to our greeters Mike Cates and Jennifer Littlefield, who greeted the cheerful Lisa Alexander so warmly! |  And thanks to Nora Bohn and Tom Larmore for putting together the music! |
New Members! New Member Ben Drati, the Superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu School District was our President's Pick! He was welcomed by RoseMary Regalbuto and Deborah Williams! And Steve Litvack introduced Jennifer Gordon, who is coming in as a new member as well! |   |
 | Hats & Ties for Africa was a huge success! Myles Pritchard thanked the club and gave us the wrap on his friend's Ties & Hats Project for Africa! We donated a huge amount of ties for enabling business attire and hats to keep folks' faces out of the sun! |
Service above self! Bill Powell briefed us on the Clean Water Project in Ecuador that our club supported by sending $40,000!!! AND, Tom Woods gave us the skinny on our Rotary Day of Service, painting at the Santa Monica Boys & Girls Club! Tom gave away a couple special hammers to helpers that went above and beyond, like Erik Jorgensborg who contributed most of the supplies used in this refurbishment project!! |    |
 | Director of Food & Beverage at the DoubleTree Hilton, Dave Romano, manned the "Decorate Your Own Cupcake" table, and Grace Cheng Braun plunged right in! Thank you DoubleTree for always treating us so very well!! |
SCHOLARSHIP DAY!  Our 2018 Scholarship Winners and their families!! We are so proud of these students, and excited to give them a little help on their way!! Recipients included: Alyssa Habschmidt, Amber Urena, Breeanna Cruz, Caroline Margolis, Jack Adams, Khaliah Sanders, Nathalie Taing, Nneka Moweta, & Stevan Perea!  Breeanna Cruz and her family were welcomed by our Scholarship Chair Deborah Williams! Thank you to Deborah and to Susan Annett for doing such an amazing job putting together this day!! | |
June 8th brought us the Bulgarian Consul General, Vasselin Valchev, plus we gave away money, and welcomed some lovely guests!!  Tom Woods, Vlado Valkof, and Larry Maher welcomed our speaker (second from right) at the door! Vlado was born and raised in Bulgaria, and arranged for Mr. Valchev to speak. | |
 Thank you to Vicky Curtis for being our Guest Introducer! |  And thanks to Nick Goehner for his great invocation! |
Fine Time! A vacation was only part of why Greg Abrams got fined. He also left the house with a mismatched outfit...he knows better than to pair a blue suit with black shoes! :) Past President Judy Neveau was fined for another of her wild overseas adventures. She said she got mooned by a giraffe!! |   |
  | Guests! It was wonderful to have TWO Assistant District Governors that day, Karen Greenberg and Bill Wishard! |
| We also had a visiting Rotarian from Paris, France...Miss Melissa Strugen! |  |
 | Roger Davis happily presented a check from our Community & Youth Grants Committee to Spencer Johnson from the Morgan Wixon Theater. They are going to take this money and install much needed new seating in the theater! |
Wine Fest will be here before you know it!  Our next International Wine Fest will be October 7, 2018 from 4-7pm! Mark your calendars! And watch and share this awesome video with all the details of the event!! | |
On June 1st, we had a great meeting! Joseph Otting, US Comptroller of Currency, was our speaker, plus we had lots of fun guests including a group of Rotaractors, and President Tom Larmore had fun fining some members!  President Tom Larmore and Past President Judy Neveau greeted our speaker, Joseph Otting. Mr. Otting heads the agency charged with overseeing our banking system in the United States! A full house listened to his insights about the economy and especially the condition of the financial system. | |
.jpg) David Rosenfeld had fun sitting up at the head table and giving the invocation! Thanks David! |  And thanks to Nora Bohn for stepping in to lead the songs even though the piano went kaput! |
Fine Time! A vacation to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary to Australia and New Zealand resulted in a fine, although Bill Dawson pleaded limited funds remaining after his trip. Nice try, Bill! His guest here was Tyler Tabit. Bill Powell was fined for his attempted coup when he substituted for President Tom the previous meeting. Carol Powell looks like she's saying "I told you so." :) | .jpg)  |
   | Among our many guests of the day, we had Bettina Duval who is the current Chair of the Board of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Monica. President Tom is the current Treasurer and will become Board Chair in two years! Madeleine Bialkin is working on the Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Monica's November auction event. She was Lisa Alexander's guest, but was warmly greeted by Rosie Regalbuto and Pam Brady! And Laurel Rosen brought Susan Hojer, who is the new Director of Membership at the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce! |
Happy Birthday Rotarians! .jpg) We love celebrating our members! Included in the birthday list were Mike Cates, Laurel Rosen, Barbara Bishop, Dick Lawrence, Josh Bradburn, Rick Mateus, Eric Schmitter, and David Rosenfeld. Thanks to our Birthday Committee for doing such a great job! | |
Rotaractors!  George Collins organized a group of Rotaract Club members from Santa Monica College to hear and meet U.S. Comptroller Joseph Otting. Our speaker was gracious and accessible to the Rotaract members.  | |
