The Classical On-Time Start

Wouldn't you know it: the year is halfway over and we started a meeting on time.  It's time for the Presidential Medal of Freedom for President Sean or an equivalent award... perhaps two weeks in Galt...

 

 

 In any event, we were all warmly greeted at the door by none other than PDG Clarence Parkins, who only had to check the membership roster twice to make sure everyone got the right badge.  Well done, my friend.  As noted above, the Prez got us off to a precisely timed start by asking Chase Armer to lead the Pledge, followed by Brett Shreiner stepping in for Gary Spainhower to lead the song.  Well done by both gentlemen.  After the usual stumbling around and some reference to Albert Einstein (or is it Norman Einstein?), the Prez loudly and proudly declared it to be disease prevention month, which turned out to be an incredible coincidence, given the prez' medical history.

 

 

  Nevertheless, it was off to the mastication derby and we were treated to some very nice split pea soup and salad, with trimmings and stuff.  Good lunch.  As has become our habit, shortly after the feeding began, we were treated to the traditional plethora of announcements (see the picture and see if you can sort them out.)  

 

 

 

The first announcer was PP Paul who is our Crab Feed Chair, who circulated a signup for some committee heads to round out the Crab Feed staffing.

 

 

 This year it's going to be different, with some additional menu items and with less work involved due to the Club outsourcing the food ordering and food prep to Linda Condon at St Johns.  Hurray... no dish washing!!!  Prez read a note from our recent guests from the library expressing their appreciation for our support of their programs.

 

  

 

Of note, there is going to be a giant lull in Rotary activity at the end of the month, with us going dark on Dec 20th, 27th and Jan 3.  You can show up anyway, but you might want to bring a sack lunch with you.  That was about it for the announcing, so it was on to the weekly Ray Wyatt drawing (in Ray's absence, uh oh...) 'Twas Bob McBee whose ticket was pulled by our guest speaker, Courtney Blake, but sadly (for Bob anyway) he only managed to lighten the can to the tune of one white ball.

 

 

 Better luck next time, Robert...

 

About that time, it became clear that the immediate PP was going to play 'Sarge for a Day' when he strode recklessly to the podium, dang near knocking over the Prez in the process.  The big guy started off by naming Chase Armer as his bag deputy for the day and then immediately turning on Ross Johnson and Anthony Chacon for their tardiness.  Most Sergeants might have stopped there, but not Chapman... he went on to pick out Navin Naik and Jerry Smuts for their birthdays and Brud Dufficy for his wedding anniversary.  Congratulations, boys.  In the spirit of the event, he then fell on his sword and nicked himself a Jackson for the recent success of his hometown Chicago Bears and then asked all the northern California residents to chip in a  buck if they were ashamed of the 49ers or proud of the Raiders, a request which fell on a number of deaf ears.

 

 

 There were some happy dollars before Prez Elect Brett chipped in for a pin infraction.  Melody volunteered that she's apparently a terrible driver and then Ross J got mad at someone, when all of a sudden Bob Adam piped in that he had been to Cirque du Soleil at the Golden 1 Center.  Conrade mourned the recent passing of everyone's favorite.... uhhh.... errrr... singer(?) Van Williams and the fining concluded with President Sean chipping in for not being fined (?!?!?)

 

With the preliminaries thus being disposed of, it was on to our guest speaker, Courtney Blake, senior manager for inside sales at Golden 1 Center.

 

 

 Anthony did a fine job of introducing Courtney, mentioning that she is the senior manager of inside sales at Golden 1 Center.  Courtney opened by showing a brief ad video highlighting the Center and then she got down to describing the features that are available to ticket holders and the numerous types of events that can be hosted there.  Golden 1 is the only LEED certified athletic arena in the world today, with the capacity to generate 100% of its electricity need.  The arena is totally wired, with smart phone access to many services and products.  It was a delightful presentation and I suspect it motivated a number of us to go down and take in an event or two.

 

 

With that, President Sean got up, gave Courtney a coffee mug and a few kind words and then flushed the room like he had a proctology appointment.  Good meeting.