Scribe Notes, April 12, 2018
President “Can-Do Sandhu” opened the meeting by reminding us that the R.I. President is Ian H.S. Riseley, of Victoria, Australia, and his theme for the year is “Rotary, Making a Difference.” Our Substitute Greeter (for Ed Duarte), Kathe Gailey, had forgotten her commitment to Ed and was happily ensconced at one of the tables. She did, however, lead us in the
Salute to the Flag. Songmeister
PP Don Jones, was called upon to lead those assembled in the
Patriotic Song, “God Bless America.” How do you spell “Perfection?”
Since PP Kathy G. was totally unprepared, PP Dr. Bill was called upon to give us a Thought for the Day. He had 15 seconds to come up with one, but never at a loss for words, he came up with a rhyme from his childhood, “Father heard his children scream; so he threw them in the stream; saying as he drowned the third; Children should be seen, not heard!” A VERY inspirational/motivational thought, indeed!
Visiting Rotarians: Bernard Szalat, of the San Ramon Valley club, and Sabina Zafar, of the Dougherty Valley club.
Other Visitors: Carolyn Degnan, who let it be known that she has landed a job, working out of her home, as COO of LymeDisease.org. Congratulations, Carolyn! Cathie Opila, who is attending as a Guest for the last time. Sandee Wiedemann, long-tine volunteer in the San Ramon area. Lynn Eskew and Avila Barnes.
Announcements:
Can-Do Sandhu announced that there will be twenty club members attending the April 18th “SRVEF Innovation in Education” Dinner at Diablo Country Club, where our club will be honored for its ongoing relationship with the Foundation.
Lucky also asked us to keep Sharon Wilcox in our prayers; she has taken a turn for the worse.
Ana Dominguez updated us on the Global Grant for a water project in Bolivia that she has been working on. The application has now been fully funded, at $60,000, and is ready to proceed! Congratulations on your success, Ana, and thank you for all the hard work you put into this. Several members of our club were also thanked -- including Don Jones and Marv Remmich -- for making contributions to get us to our club’s funding goal.
Lucky reminded us that the Six-Club Meeting will be held the evening of May 16th. The speaker will be past RI President, Richard King. Unlike normally, there WILL be a Regular Meeting of our club the following day; it will be Stacy Litteral hosting the “Unsung Heroes” Award Presentations.
The San Ramon Historical Foundation has presented us with two free passes to the “1850’s Old Barn Preview” on May 6th, at 3:00 pm. Foundation Member admission is free; visitors are asked to pay $25.00. This should be an fun event for those interested in the history of the San Ramon Valley!
Good News/Fine Free: None
Recognitions: John Tatum, Chris Gallagher, Barry Toby and Dennis Harvey were recognized for birthdays; Jerry Marrs, Guy Greco and Chris Gallagher were recognized for their wives’ birthdays, and Marco Bronzini -- who has now attended a record two meetings in a row!!!! -- was recognized for his (and Abby’s) anniversary. Can-Do Sandhu insisted that the assemblage sing “Happy Birthday,” however, it came off so very badly that this Scribe hopes that this will NEVER happen again! It was awful, and it hurt the ears of Songmeisters Don Jones, Jeff Disch and Terry Koehne; Mike Thelen would also have been appalled, had he been in attendance!
PP Kathy Gailey noted that the East Bay Times is working on an article about our club’s activities!
PP Guy Greco noted that the Golf Outing for this month got postponed; a new outing is being worked on.
PP Dennis Harvey introduced Cathie Opila as our newest Red Badge. She graduated from Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute as an Electrical Engineer, and is a Systems Engineer in the tech field. She was also a very active mom for two, now adult, girls! The traditional handshake greeting was postponed for logistical reasons (ie -- the room was very small and crowded).
Program:
Luck Sandhu introduced Alex Mehran, Jr. by relating to us a tale of his company’s survival during the real estate crunch of 2008. Alex and Sunset Development, his landlord, made rent accommodations for him so that his struggling mortgage broker business could survive (only 2 of 40 in the Bishop Ranch did!). For this he will be forever grateful!
Alex, who is COO of Sunset Development Company, graduated from Brown University and then went to work for Goldman Sachs. After some years, he joined his father, becoming VP of Operations at the Bishop Ranch.
He related that Sunset Development was started by his grandfather, Masud, in 1951, building homes in Livermore. He purchased the Bishop Ranch property in 1978 and he and Alex, Sr. set out to build a world-class business park in the 1980’s. The huge Pacific Bell building was constructed on land sold to that firm by the Mehran’s, however, after their departure, Sunset Development purchased that building from Pac Bell and, after extensive renovations, has now been added to the for lease space in the Bishop Ranch. The large entry feature of that building is open to the public, as are the lake and the trail around the lake. Alex invited everyone to take advantage of these lovely features!
As for the City Center, currently under construction off of Bollinger Canyon Road, it was designed by the renowned architect, Renzo Piano, to be a “meeting place” for the residents of San Ramon and its businesses. It has both interior-facing and exterior-facing features in order to draw people to it and then provide a unique shopping/dining/entertainment experience. The central “piazza” will have a water feature and will provide access to the many spaces in the complex. A second-floor movie theatre, which features luxury seating with food served at the patron’s seat, will have nine screens. Eight of them are relatively small and one will be large to accommodate “first run” films and other special events.
Not all of the available retail and restaurant space has to date been leased, however, Alex is expecting that the energy generated by the dining opportunities and the several well-recognized retailers will bring others into the fold.
San Ramon has long been wanting a “downtown;” a place to meet friends and gather and all of us very much hope that the City Center at Bishop Ranch will provide exactly that!
Raffle: The Greeter’s Gift of $20.00 was won by Dr. Bill and the chance of drawing the gold marble was won by Marco Bronzini (were you aware that this was only his second meeting in the past decade?). “Unfortunately” he drew a blue marble so he only received $10!
Next Week’s Program: Scholarships will be presented to several Cal High Seniors, and graduating Interactors will be presented with stole to wear at the graduation ceremony. Our Greeter will be Julie Fiedler (and I KNOW we can count on her to show up!).
