Meeting Recap Jan 29 - at Senior Center

 

Our meeting was called to order by Pres. Dianne.

Liz Schuck led us in the National Anthem

Robin Jeffs and Ralph Ely were greeters

Ralph's inspiration: "We are so blessed to live in this country, and in this community!"

 

Guests included:

Wes Burgess, a prospective member and guest of Doug Adams

Marla Wong, Dave Dickson's wife

Susan Shapira, Honorary HMB Rotarian who is planning to transfer from the Airport Rotary to HMB as a full fledged member.

 

Happy/Crappy News:

Susan Kealey, fellow Rotarian and Senior Coastsider board member, "It took 16 years to get this building." She also told us we wouldn't be seeing much of her in the next few months as her spring seed order arrived.

 

Dave Dickson, explaining why he and Marla couldn't attend spaghetti dinner. They attend a seminar at Stanford titled, The Science of Happiness. Dave says helping others is one way to achieve happiness and the other is having sex two times a week!

 

Joe Brennan, announcing the Annual Gala for Alliance for Smiles at the SF Intercontinental; anyone wanting to buy in to a table, let him know. Dianne also reminded us that our club is making a donation to AFS.

 

Mike Alifano, exhuberant that the Planning Commission voted 4-0 in favor of the new Skate Park and that Tuesday is the last day to appeal the new Gymnasium, and so far, none have been submitted.

 

Eric Shapira, sharing that his grandson's chickens laid 16 eggs this week.

 

It’s all about “What We Do Award”:

Dianne presented the first ever "What We Do" Award to Joe Brennan for organizing the Spaghetti Dinner to End Polio.  She also surprised him with two packages of special pasta as a reward.

 

Foundation Moment: Kevin O'Brien followed up from Joe’s announcement that we earned $4,500 from the “I Want to End Polio” dinner, which translates to $13,500 to the ‘End Polio Now” Campaign with the 2to1 matching funds from the Gates Foundation, which will provide a heck of a lot of inoculations!  Kevin reminded us that when we contribute to the Foundation, we get recognition credits as well as Paul Harris Fellow awards and that those can be assigned to someone else. In honor of Joe and his successful dinner event, Kevin said he was donating his recognition points to him, to bring Joe to the next level of Paul Harris!

 

Warren told us that the first distribution was at Hatch last Tuesday; they gave over 100 dictionaries to the 3rd graders. In addition to Warren, Denali and Mitone and Paul helped. He also talked about RYLA and the fact that the registration deadline has been extended to Feb. 15. Three HMB students have already been accepted, still time for more. If you know a sophomore or a junior be sure they go to the District 5150 website and register!

 

Paul Wrubel presented a college funding workshop to over 50 attendees last Saturday, teaching them how to complete the FAFSA paperwork. Paul told us that in his 25 years of presenting this information, parents continue to be amazed that they can save $20,000-70,000 on college fees if they use the system. Paul also commented that helping with the dictionary distribution was "a Norman Rockwell moment if I've ever seen one" and reminded us that what we do, makes a difference!

 

Andrew said the club was moving forward with possibly having a booth at Dream Machines this year again. If you're interested in helping on the planning committee, let him know. April 26 is the date. We will need other volunteers that day as well. He is exploring other foods/drinks to sell.  We won’t be doing French fries.  There is also possibility of collaboration with another organization to do this.  Andrew will get back to us when he has more information to see if we will go ahead with this.

 

John Evans announced that the 4-6 band members need housing during the event. Let him know if you can accommodate one or more.  It will save us the expense of providing them with hotel accommodations.

Liz Schuck announced that the Auction committee would meet briefly after the meeting, and that we need more items for the auction, especially the quick sellers like baskets and gift cards.

Dianne reminded us that the “Service Above Self “award nomination deadline was approaching, Feb. 6th.

 

Dan Miller stressed that evidenced by our recent co facilitated dinner (Odd Fellows/Rotary) that members can belong to more than one non-profit group...there is benefit in asking others even if they already belong to an organization. Dan's goal for new members is 10 this year!

 

Ginger told us that Dan is getting out several times a week; appreciates phone calls.

 

Dianne shared that Dave bought the ticket she donated for $100 and gave it to his wife Connie. So Dianne and Dave contributed another $100 to the dictionary fund.

 

Dianne reminded us that the District Conference is May 1-3, 2015, at Disneyland. Info is available online for registration if interested.

 

Each table was asked to identify something everyone at the table had in common; come up with a clever way to share that without naming it; present to other groups and have them guess. Group themes included: I Love to Swim, We Love Dogs, None of us were in the military, We've all had Moustaches, All have kids (going away to college). None of us were in the Military won chocolate bars for most difficult to guess! (Which they kindly shared with the other groups.)

 

We also shared how long we've been in Rotary. Eric Shapira is the "grand poobah" having been in Rotary, in this club, for 38 years followed by John Evans who joined about three months later.  We also learned a historical fact: the Rotary Club of Half Moon Bay has been in existence since 1971!!

 

Following the meeting members were taken on a very informative and interesting tour of the whole facility by Janie James, CADCC Director.