The President's Missing!

President Sean, for all his good intentions, managed to pass on the meeting today and it fell to his predecessor, the Big Guy, to salvage the wreckage.  Rumor has it that the Prez was still winging his way back from the Presidential debate on the east coast where he lent Donald Trump some presidential wisdom, but this can't be verified at this time.  It was a bit of an unusual meeting due to the late arrival of Dave and Jan, so the meeting started with no victuals in sight.  With his typical on-time start, the has-been thanked Mike Passof for a great job of saying hello to people.   Up to this point, members were observed actually chatting with each other.

 

 

Moving on to the opening ceremony, Big J asked Mike Passof to lead the Pledge, which he did in fine fashion.  Next, Beth Walter's name flashed upon the screen to lead the song, so naturally, uhhhh...  Mike Passof stepped up and began singing and a bunch of his closest friends jumped in to help him out.  It is apparent to this writer that Mike is destined for greatness in this Rotary Club, what with the extensive experience he's accumulated shaking, talking and singing...  just sayin'...

 

 

About this time, Dave and Jan arrived and set out a scrumptious lunch featuring seafood linguini and salad and a bunch of trimmings.  People began charging the food line as we introduced our one visiting Rotarian, Chris Clark, Past President of the Rancho Cordova Sunrise Rotary.  Chris' function, as best we can figure out, was to provide personal security to our guest speaker, Robert Sanger, for whom Chris works.  Welcome to Chris.  Anyway, pretty soon everybody was happily masticating away.

 

 

After a short but poignant break from official duties while everyone consumed mass quantities, the stand-in opened the meeting with a review of a bunch of announcements, the most important of which were the following reminders:

 

1. Oct 8 -  Foundation seminar at Faith Presbyterian Church on Florin Road - see Clarence for details and to sign up to go.  This is a terrific opportunity to learn about the Rotary Foundation and all the good it does.

 

2. Oct 22 - District Foundation Dinner at the Red Lion Inn on Leisure Lane.  We always have a great showing at this event; be sure to sign up next week when the Prez will probably remember to bring a sign-up

 

There were probably a few more announcements, but your poor reporter ran out of ink at that precise moment.  Yeah, that's the ticket...

 

 

Well, sir, once the announcing was over, it was time for the weekly ritual of giving Ray Wyatt money, but Ray was strangely not in attendance, so our guest speaker drew Jerry Smuts' ticket from the can.  $191 was the prize and there was one white and one orange ball in the can.  One can imagine how disappointed the room was when Jerry managed to yank the solitary white ball from said can.  Hard cheese, my friend.  Better luck next time.  Your day will come.  Stay positive.  Remember the Alamo...

 

 

Have you ever noticed that when things start to go bad,, they seem to cluster up and go in a rush?  Bad enough that God Bless America girl was absent from her job, but the designated Irish Sarge also failed to show, so in his absence the other Ross stepped up to the mike and performed sergeantly duties.  Strange as it may seem, Sergeant Johnson managed to extract some coin from everyone in the room... amazing.  Bob McBee had a birthday and had been gone and paid and refused the song.  Likewise Neil Orchard had been out of town, but no birthday to this writer's knowledge.  Jerry Smuts felt honor-bound to pay for his swell new white golf ball.  Chapman paid $5 for the Bears humiliating defeat at Dallas over the weekend and then chipped another $5 just to hear Clarence recap Marshall's second place finish in a gridiron athletic contest over the same weekend.  There was more, but sadly the Club reporter broke the lead in his pencil at the critical moment.

 

 

Now that everyone's wallet was a little lighter, it was time for our guest speaker.  The stand-in got up and introduced Robert Sanger, Executive Director of the Folsom Cordova Community Partnership, who gave a very enlightening talk on the mission and activities of the Partnership in helping to shape the successful upbringing of the youth in our community.  I think many of us were amazed at the breadth of programs that Community Partnership brings to the table, including family crisis intervention, emergency housing, nutrition programs, on the job training programs, a diaper bank (really?), parenting programs and a lot more.

 

 

 He raced over the functions they perform and during the Q & A, we found out that they're able to support this incredible effort on a staff of only 45 folks.  A very impressive presentation on a very impressive organization.  At the end, the tall one got up, thanked Robert, gave him a coffee mug, and had him sign the traditional book.  As the meeting was adjourned, the room cleared like Patton's Fifth Army had just steamrolled the building.  Good meeting.