It was a glorious day at San Ramon Rotary Club as John (Copy Cat) Milich called the meeting to order at 12:17 p.m. and announced that Barry Rassin was the RI President with the theme to “Be an Inspiration” not only to ourselves but to everyone around us.  The lunch was delicious with a Mexican flare and new way of presenting chicken. Marv Remmich was our inspirational Greeter who offered the following thought for the day:

“Success is a vehicle that moves on a wheel called ‘hard work’, but the    journey is impossible without the fuel called ‘self confidence’”.

With great confidence, Marv introduced Roberto from the Danville Sycamore Club and Herm was asked to lead us in My Country Tis of Thee and he did just that in a VERY LOW register.  Marv proceeded to share with us that he recently moved out of his garage.  After explaining that it was not due to his banishment from some lack of husband acumen, but rather was the result of completing some house renovation, he also shared that his wife Susan had been habituating at their ranch house in Brentwood.  Hopefully, the two will reconnect and be able to live together again.

Marv also shared that he was on the Cal State East Bay Board, the 100 Club board and occasionally gets to golf and play tennis.

The intrepid Mike Thelan introduced our very talented Vidhima Shetty as the Student of the Month.  Vidhima is a passionate writer who possesses a compassionate, enthusiastic voice that actively engages her readers and the community.  Vidhima is no ordinary teenager. She is the Editor in Chief of the school newspaper, the founder of a Poetry and Prose group, organized through the City Council a Student Poet Laureate and published a book.    Apparently, Vidhima had a neighbor who was stricken with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and following her research and article in the local school newspaper expanded her thoughts and findings into a published book “An Adolescent Guide to ME/CFS”.  This disease strikes 17-24 million people, not diagnosed 80% of the time and is underfunded for research to find some marker that will help identify the disease.  All profits of her book go to the Open Medicine Foundation.  Remember Vidhima is still a teenager considering schools to pursue a joint major in journalism and biology.  She was indeed impressive and joined by her proud parents, Vasanth and Prema Shetty as well as her inspirational teacher Donna Montague.

 

 

 

 

Interact:  While SOM was a hard act to follow, John proceeded to introduce our Interact Liaison Aakash Bhegade.  Interact is 150 members strong with a very active club.  There activities include:

 

As you can see this is an active group.  Gary Sloan thanked the Interact Club for helping out with the Auction and contributing $300 for the Bolivian Water Project.   He also gratefully thanked the many Rotarians who offered to drive the Interact participants to Winters but particularly called out Dennis, Norbert and Patti for coming to the call for help.

 

Glen Weber was part of a subcommittee of the Board consisting of Edgardo, Pria, Lucky, Colette, Dennis and Glen to discuss issues that might enhance club participation and membership growth. Consideration was given to the following:

           

 

For interested Rotarians who wish to provide their input to improve the club, please contact Glen Weber.

 

Glen concluded his comments by making sure everyone knew that the Cal Bears won and the Purdue beat Ohio State much to the chagrin of the now departed John Sims, a beloved former member of the club.

 

Guy Greco could not get himself to say that the seven golfers stunk up the golf course at Canyon Lakes last week.  No winner was announced and the only constructive thing that came out of this debacle was that a committee would be formed for next year with the hope that our golfer skills improve.

 

The annual Veteran’s Day lunch will be held at San Ramon Regional Medical Center 7777 Norris Canyon Road in the South Conference Room.  Karen McNamara announced that an email invite was being sent and asked all Rotarians to respond with an RSVP.  She also suggested that each Rotarian bring a veteran.

 

Karen also asked that we mark our calendars to attend a Fund Raising Idea meeting at Worth Ranch Restaurant at 2410 San Ramon Blvd, San Ramon at 5:30p to develop some ideas on how to replace the lost revenues from the discontinued Xmas Tree Lot project.  Interested parties please attend.

 

Chris Gallagher talked to Mark Von and Spike recently who indicated that only one person (Chris) had come by their Sedona home.  They miss the club and would love to have visitors.  Chris did not suggest a road trip by bus for the entire club but it is an idea considering.

 

John recognized a few Rotarians who had birthdays or whose spouse had a birthday.  Among those recognized was Norbert for his wife’s birthday ($25) and Mark for his birthday ($50).  Thankfully, John recognized Herman who otherwise would have forgotten his wife upcoming birthday.  For his forgetfulness, he was recognized for $25.

Now at a critical juncture, Jerry Marrs demonstrated how the online site worked.  He shared the last details to advertising this important fund raising event and asked that every Rotarian go to the site, like it, share it, copy it and send it to friends.  Jerry asked and received help to put signs up at schools advertising the event.  The club sent notices to Chamber of Commerce, Leadership and over 50,000 parents in the school system.  It was recommended that John contact each Rotary President to encourage them to have their members sign up for the auction.

 

San Ramon Rotary member can sign up at www.SRVEF.org/auction.

 

Jerry thanked all Rotarians who worked hard to make this a successful event.  In particular, Marie, Kathy, Dennis, Chris, Gary, Patti, Norbert and others were recognized.  The club gave a rousing show of appreciation to Jerry for his leadership.  Jerry appreciated the accolades but announced that he would need Garth’s services to reduce the ill-effects of Jerry’s routine grinding his teeth.

The Student of the Month, Vidhima Shetty left a number of  books for Rotarians interested in the subject or who wish to donate to the Open Medicine Foundation.

 

The $20 greeter’s gift was won by Geoff (again!)

The opportunity to win $350 was drawn by Marie who pick a blue marble for $10.

 

Don Jones wanted an explanation and apology from Gary as to what was happening to the Dodgers in the World Series and why Fred was wearing a Boston cap.  Gary mumbled something about the desire for 7 game series but it fell on deaf ears.

The greeter next week will be from one of our newer members, the always sunny Rachna.  Next weeks program will be “How We Communicate” by Elizabeth Perry, Bay Area Speech Language and Accent Works BASLAWORKS.com.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 1:15 pm

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Gary Sloan

Scribe