Scribe Notes, May 2, 2019
By: Hermann Welm
With President John “Copy Cat” Milich’s absence, PP Lucky Sandhu opened this meeting by reminding us that the R.I. President is Barry Rassin, of the Bahamas, and his theme for the year is “Be the Inspiration!” Our Greeter, Judy McKinney, led us in the Salute to the Flag. Her Though for the Day was, “Work as hard as you can, give as much as you can, help as much as you can and then be happy in the knowledge that you couldn’t have done more!”
PP Don Jones lead the group in the singing of the Patriotic Song, “God Bless America!”
Visiting Rotarians: None.
Other Visitors: Alicia Gee and Vanessa Berastain of the San Ramon Valley Education Foundation (“SRVEF”), and Allison Gannon, a guest of this Scribe.
Announcements:
PP Gary Sloan ran down some of the particulars about the SRVEF and our participation in it. Our annual fundraiser, the Online Auction for Education, and prior to that, Carboload, have been the largest donor to the foundation for years.
SRVEF provides teacher support in all the schools within the District. This past year, about 300 teachers submitted 440 grant applications of which 118 were funded; the total for them was $67,000.
The focus of the SRVEF is on several initiatives that help students get the most out of their educational experience. They are:
STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) brought to students via “Imagineering,” a beyond school enrichment program. Imagineering includes areas such as biotech, robotics, 3D printing and coding. Students and teachers then receive support to participate in the County Science Fair.
MUSIC INITIATIVE, launched in 2018 to encourage elementary schools to reintroduce or enhance music instruction.
MATH INITIATIVE, with its endowment fund, provides sustained support for the Silicon Valley Math Initiative which trains teachers/coaches who in turn then mentor other teaches in their schools. Since 1997, this program has had a successful track record in improving student achievement in math.
SCIENCE ALLIANCE, where high school students mentor 5th graders. The program provides training for these mentors. Both the mentor and the 5th-grader benefit from this interaction.
TEACHER DEVELOPMENT is achieved by providing summer internships for science teachers at the Lawrence Livermore Lab’s Teacher Research Academy. The teachers attend academies in areas such as biotech, computer modeling and astrophysics.
As of 2017, the SRVEF has assets of $2.3 million, with annual revenue of $869,000 and expenses of $784,000. Approximately half of the expenses are costs/grants for the initiatives described above.
Other Announcements:
PP Chris Gallagher was happy to announce that his beloved dog, which had suffered from a lung infection, was coming home today!
Karen McNamara announced that this year’s Trinity Center Luncheon for the homeless needed to be moved to a smaller venue, so only she and Horace Crawford will be attending to represent our club. There simply will not be enough room for members to join in.
Edgardo Carrillo is looking into our club sponsoring an exchange student, starting August, 2020.
Edgardo is also handling the sale of our twenty tickets to the 6-Club Baseball Outing on August 25. It’s the A’s versus the Giants at the Colosseum; cost is $50.00 per person. Contact him or Glen Weber.
PP Dennis Harvey summarized the results of last weekend’s Smoke and CO Alarm Project. The team, including Cal High Interactors, covered about 75 percent of the homes in Sunny Glen; 102 single family units and 42 condos. We are now installing 10-Year Alarms, which are more expensive than the older versions The Budget only included $1,000 for the units, yet the total costs were $2,800. We had help from others to make up the shortfall.
PP Guy Greco noted that the Rotary Bocce Ball Tournament will be held in Martinez on May 11.
Good News/Fine Free:
Pat Patterson noted that his granddaughter is graduating from Boise State this spring.
This Scribe bragged about his son, the breast cancer researcher, who has taken up the hobby of artistic welding. His big creation, a to-scale model of a Nucleosome, won him a “Passion in Science” award. He and eleven others will be recognized for being extraordinary ambassadors for science to the community at large.
Program:
PP Lucky Sandhu stepped in to the breach because our scheduled speaker could not make it. He spoke about his mortgage brokerage business, RelFi, which he started in 2008, probably the worst possible year to have gone into this business because of the housing market collapse! So, he filled the time available by going to school and getting himself further educated in this field.
One of the interesting points he made was that the typical mortgage broker doesn’t really look at the home buyer as his/her “customer.” They consider real estate agents the people they have to service and answer to. So, he refocused his business on actually serving the home buyer, thereby making them happy and they in turn make the real estate agent’s job easier!
His core values in dealing with clients are: Honesty, Humility, Hard Work, Hours at work, and Humor. (This Scribe surmises from this that the “Five H’s” are not accidental!)
Lucky strives to have closings on a “purchase loan” happen in 17 days or less! He searches out the lowest intertest rates and fees from various sources and strives to have down payment requirements as well as low credit scores and/or self-employment issues quickly worked into the proposals he presents. His step-by-step personalized guidance with the home buyer, which often requires working at odd hours to keep the project moving, makes his real estate acquaintances quite happy since the buyer stays informed without them having to baby-sit the process.
Recognitions: None. No time!
Raffle: The Greeter’s Gift of $20.00 was won by Mike Gunning, who then proceeded to also win the chance of drawing the gold marble. His luck failed him there so he had to settle for the $30.00 in cash!
Next Week’s Program: The annual “Grads to Patriots” program. The Greeter will be Julie Fiedler, with Newbie McKenna Lay assisting!
