Our Grizzled Lady Grizzly President Lay tried to call the meeting to order at 12:15p on a beautiful Fall day, but was rudely interrupted by an interloping substitute Greeter, Chris Gallagher (President elect candidate). As Colette’s “helper”, Chris announced that the RI President was Mark Maloney and that the Rotary theme is “Rotary Connects the World”.  Chris appropriately provided a thought for the day:

 

            “Happiness is the absence of thought.  So stop thinking so much”

 

If happiness is the absence of thought, Mr. Gallagher is no doubt the happiest man alive since we have all known how thoughtless he can be. (only kidding) Chris did greet the late arriving Dennis Garrison who by all appearances was substituting for the perennial late Garth Riopelle.

Don Jones led us in God Bless America followed by a Rotarian ending the song with “play ball”.  But since the Giants forgot how to play baseball and the Dodgers do not know how to get to a World Series, we baseball fans are relegated to watching the Damn Yankees.

Introductions included a return visit from Suzette Eikel, a CPA who survived the tax extension deadline of October 15.  She plans on filling in an application for membership despite her interactions with club members that she claims has been positive thus far.  A lovely person with a wonderful disposition, we encouraged Suzette to join this motely crew of do-gooders.

 

Tim Tigner was also introduced as a guest who generously donated to our Online Auction only to get interested in potentially joining the club. Tim is a former counter intelligence officer, former medical instrument employee turned spy novelist with ten books to his name.  When President Lay contacted Tim she was coincidently reading one of his novels.  Strange things.  A very interesting guy who I suspect would have to kill me if he shared any secret plot twists in his upcoming book.

Bill Harlan announced our annual task of distributing dictionaries to third graders at the 5 local elementary schools.  He needed to fill three spots and immediately got a positive response from Norbert and Kathy (Rotary role models).  This is a 30 minute task with amazing personal returns.

Speaking of personal returns, Ray Giles kicked off his annual request for Rotary Foundation Donations emphasizing participation in the Paul Harris Society ($1,000 annual donation per annum).  While this may sound like a lot of mula, Ray reminded us that it is $20 per week or a Starbucks cup of coffee, a couple of Manhattan’s or a few sleeves of golf balls.  Guy Greco’s penchant for Manhattans and for losing golf balls was mentioned prominently in Ray’s appeal.    There are already 10 members of our club who are Paul Harris Society members and anyone who wishes to donate any amount to the Foundation can see Ray, go online or complete a paper form. The District has a goal of 50 new Paul Harris Society members this year.  When asked if this donation is tax deductible, Ray remarked that it was in accordance with applicable law and specific to the circumstances of the tax paying Rotarian.

 

Auction News:  President Grizzly shared that we need more auction items as we near our Auction Week Nov 1-9.  Dennis Harvey shared a successful effort in obtained a gif certificate from Bridges and an experience with a donor who asked if club members drink alcohol and if so he would donate 1.5 Liter of Glenmorangire Scotch.

 

San Ramon Rotary T-Shirts have arrived.  Members who ordered but not picked up their shirts were shamed into doing so before leaving the meeting today.

 

If you think the club is not doing much, you a sadly mistaken.  Our Lady President is a hard taskmaster to insure that we live up to our reputation, as a SERVICE club that can have fun so here are the upcoming events:

 

October 19                 Clean Up Project

October 23                 6 Club Meeting at Roundhouse

October 26                 Alzheimer Walk

Nov 2                          San Ramon Rotary Hike in the Oakland Hills

Nov 7                          Veterans Day Lunch at San Ramon Regional Medical Center

Nov 12                        6 Club Social at EJ Phair in Alamo

Dec 12                                    Senior Center Lunch

Dec 23                                    Holiday Party at Crow Canyon Country Club

Karen McNamara reminded everyone that every seven years Halloween is on a Rotary Thursday so she asked for everyone to wear a costume or at least a fun hat to get into the spirit of Halloween.

Mike Thelen did a masterful job introducing the Student of the Month from Cal High.  Josh Peralta, a 10^th grader was nominated by his Instrumental Music teacher.  Apparently, Josh was one of the strongest of 17 clarinet players in Symphonic Band. However, it was suggested that the ensemble would benefit from someone switching to bassoon, Josh did some research and then volunteered to make the switch. Since then he has been coming in regularly outside of class to practice and has made impressive progress. Having a strong musician on bassoon is really important to having a balanced band, but it's not exactly the sexiest instrument. Mike shared that Josh was also on the varsity wrestling team since he was a freshman and maintained over a 4.0 GPA.  He received this award for excelling in music, sports and academics representing a well rounded student with good character.

Kimi Shirai, VP for Communications, Cal High Interact, demonstrated how incredibly involved and connected to the needs of our community participating in service and fund raising activities.  Interact embodies Rotary’s interest in improving the environment, addressing poverty, addressing foster care needs and providing service that mirrors Rotary goal.

 

Want more boba for a good cause?? We’re having a fundraiser at Teaspoon! Come stop by after school and show the flyer so that proceeds go to Interact.

 

Interact will be making dog toys out of old t-shirts! We will be meeting at Central Park to enjoy our boba and get to know each other while making toys. All dog toys will be donated to a local animal shelter. Bring your old t-shirts!

 

We will be working with the Rotarians of our local club to clean up a park in San Ramon!

Get to know other Interactors and Rotarians through service. Supplies will be provided.

 

Montevideo is hosting its annual fall carnival, which will feature various game booths for kids. Volunteers can help with setup, running the booths, and cleanup.

 

Walk to End Alzheimer’s (Sun, Oct 27, 7:30 AM - 12:30 PM)

The Alzheimer’s Association hosts the Walk to End Alzheimer’s to raise funds for research about Alzheimer’s Disease and for support for patients.

 

The Gratitude Network is hosting an event to raise money, benefiting children around the world.

 

We’re pairing up with Key Club to make fleece blankets for children in foster care through My Very Own Blanket!

 

Meet Interactors from all over NorCal! District Conference will include games, speeches from Rotarians, four break-out sessions, and lunch. Session topics include service, team building, leadership, and fundraising! 

 

JDRF One Walk is an event held by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to fundraise for type 1 diabetes research.

 

 

Gary Sloan thanked Kathy Gailey for providing adult supervision at the Open Heart Kitchen Interact event.  The Interact Club will also participate in the Rotaract sleep over at Berkeley to learn about how to stay a part of the Rotary experience through college.  Kimi also shared that the Interact volunteers assisted in the Iron Horse Trail clean up campaign sponsored by Montevidello Elementary School and coordinated through Chris Gayler.  This year the Interact District will be supporting the Environment Defense Fund to protect our environment.

 

The District Interact Conference will be on November 11^th at which time Rotarian drivers will be needed to transport the Interact members to Salesian High School in Richmond. Mark your calendars.

 

Glen Weber read an editorial regarding the tremendous contributions Rotary has made to the eradication of Polio.  He shared that at the beginning in 1985 the club/district was asked to raise  $25,000 and that when announced to the members the effort was received enthusiastically. To date, Rotary and its partners have vaccinated over 2.5 billion children worldwide.

Glen proceeded to introduce our speaker, Jim Knudsen, 75 year young and a lifetime Alameda County resident with 40 years of law enforcement experience including six years with the Oakland Police Department and 34 years with the Alameda Sheriffs Office. Jim’s spoke on his experience in the Police department leading to his involvement in the 100 Club and suggest why Rotary should support the police and support organizations.

 

Jim’s story begins with his partner’s death in the line of duty in 1986.  While fellow officers and he visited the widow, Jim responded to a knock on the door to be greeted by a delegation from the 100 Club.   This club supports fallen police officer’s families through direct contributions and the representative at the door wanted to respectively ask if his club could help defer any funeral expenses or existing debt of the fallen officer’s family.  Jim reported that there was $16,000 of expenses associated with his ex-partner’s family to which the 100 Club wrote a check in the full amount immediately while on site.  This so impressed Jim that he joined the 100 Club in Alameda in 2006 upon his retirement.  At his first meeting, the guest speaker was his partner’s son who had received funds to assist in his getting a college education. 

 

Jim described two major police tragedies. The first incident occurred in 1988 in Oakland where five sheriffs were killed arresting a suspect.  They perished as a result of a 2000 LBS dynamite explosion.  The second event occurred in 2009 when four police officers were killed in the line of duty leaving nine children without a father.  The 100 Club arranged to provide a college fund for each of these children.

 

Anticipating questions regarding police wrongdoing and media reporting on the subject, Jim shared that 1,000 individuals are killed by police officers in a year.  Of those killed 31% are Black Americans and 52% are Caucasian.  164 police officers were killed in 2018.  While recognizing that there have been police wrongdoing on a small scale, Jim emphasized that there are over 80,000 officers in California and 750,000 nationwide with very few extreme cases of misconduct.

 

Jim shared the history of the 100 Club originating in Detroit in the 1950s when a businessman asked 100 friends to help support the police by contributing funds to reduce a fallen officer’s family’s debt and educational needs.

 

Jim’s is dabbles in police history. Deputy Johnson was shot and died in 1852. As a result of the Yerba Buena cemetery being closed and graves supposedly moved and headstones removed and used for the ”great highway”.  Jim was responsible for finding Deputy Johnson unmarked grave and placing headstones on this and ten other grave sites of long forgotten police officers.  As a result of Jim’s work, Deputy Johnson’s name will be added to the memorial in our nation’s capital on May 15, 2019 and at the California Memorial Foundation in 2020.

Colette gave a certificate in appreciation for his presentation with a contribution to the Discovery Counseling Center.

 

Our weekly drawing did not include a greeter’s gift much to the groans and complaints of the members.  All was forgiven after Ana Dominquez pulled a blue marble, pocketed $10 and left $150 in next week’s pot.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 1:15p.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Gary Sloan

One of Harlan’s Ink-Stained Wretch Rotary Scribes

Thank you so much to everyone that brought books in for the book drive! It was a very successful September for Basic Education and Literacy month, and all the books will be donated to the San Ramon Library store for them to resell to help fund the library. 

 

Thank you so much to everyone that donated! 

McKenna