UPCOMING SOCIALS & PROJECTS & EVENTS  

For more details and additional events, see the Announcements section below.

More socials, projects, & events coming soon!

Opening the Meeting

A new year for this bulletin writer means a new President to make to fun of. Alas, President Casey opened the meeting on time and introduced Barry Silberg to give the pledge, four-way test and the opening thought. Barry wasted no time in getting off the pledge and then was so eager to drop some culture on us with a poem that he forgot the four-way test. No harm, no foul as we all jumped in to a rousing four-way (five-way?) test – including to have fun!

Visiting Rotarians and Guests

We had some visiting Rotarians as the big wigs from District 5130 stopped by. DG Jim O’Grady from the Petaluma Valley Club and Assistant DG Marilyn Lira from the East-West Club (although she comes to our meetings a lot so I make a motion to adopt her) graced us with their presence. We also had another visiting Rotarian named Sterling from the Altadena club. He had a French-sounding last name and I only speak English and Spanish so my apologies to Sterling for only getting his first name.

Susan Nowacki introduced a young lady named Ainsley who is a  Short Term Exchange Program (STEP) student who spent a few weeks in Spain and her Spanish “sister” Elia. They each spoke about their experiences in Spain and the US that included iconic cities and destinations as well as food and culture. Ainsley’s mom, Janice, also spoke about how great it was to be a host parent and how this made sure she did more than just head to Target and Walmart! Sounds like a win!

Opportunity Drawing

The honorable Dan Balfe handled the drawing and reported that there was a mere $42 in the pot. The most honorable Ray Giampoli won and pulled the blue marble when there were eight marbles still in the bag. So he graciously donated his loot to Polio.

Casey then took the opportunity to remind us all to put money into the Polio pails. He’s slick like that.

Announcements

This bulletin writer was chagrined to see all the people who got up for announcements. I liked it a lot better when nobody was doing anything. At any rate, here’s what was announced…

Debi Zaft reminded us that SCARC is again around the corner and it will be at the Foxtail Golf Club hosted by the Rancho Cotati club. The topic will be kidney transplants and attendees will hear the story of a donor and recipient. Salmon and Beef will be on the menu and you must RSVP to Debi by August 19^th. I’m sure she said the date and price but I didn’t write it down so check in with Debi on that too.

Fred Levin got up to remind us of the Veteran’s Program on November 7^th and asked who planned to attend. About a third of the club raised their hands. Fred asked for sponsorships to help defray costs and reminded us that there is no meeting that week so we can all attend the Veteran’s Program.

Julie Parranto kept her announcement short and sweet by announcing that Jim Greene will be heading the membership committee. Now you know that’s going to be fun!

Ray then got up and announced that he still has four seats available for his wild game dinner on August 25^th. Tickets are $200. The food will consist of wild game that Ray himself killed with his own two hands.

Sam McMillan announced that we bought 2 lambs and 2 pigs at the fair and we stayed on budget.

Steve Olson then gave us an overview of the youth livestock auction and that the 40 kids that Rotary supported who showed animals had 13 champions among them and sold their livestock for over $200,000! Wow!

He also said the Junior Livestock auction overall generated $2.3 million in sales. Amazing. So amazing that I’m not sure I heard him right. That’s a lot of bacon.

Richard Rossi was already talking Giro Bello. There may be a conflict with Giro Bello and the Rotary International Convention that will be in Calgary in June. If too many Rotarians are going to miss Giro Bello because of the convention, we may need to change the date. Stay tuned!

Casey reminded us all that the club’s board meetings are now on the 2^nd Tuesday of the month at the YMCA at 4pm if you’d like to attend. If you want to get in a workout after let me know. I might know somebody.

Finally, Steve Olson told us about how Sam McMillan will be recognized by the 4H Club as the Alumni of the Year on August 24^th. If you’d like to attend, see Steve or Sam for more information. Sam then got up and gave a very touching and moving speech about how 4H has always been a part of his life. It was so moving that Casey then asked how important was 4H to him? Sam understood the assignment and said, it was $100 important and donated it to the Jameson scholarship fund.

Program

Our speaker was District Governor Jim O’Grady who came to speak about the “Magic of Rotary” and District 5130’s theme of “Building Better Friendships.” Folks, if you missed this, you missed a magic trick with a handkerchief appearing out of nowhere, a trivia contest with all sorts of fun trivia questions and… several songs on the accordion. I’d like to tell you all of the trivia questions but once the music started, I was too traumatized to take notes. It was the longest 12 minutes of my life.

Seriously though, old Jim could play the accordion! Very impressive and he took us through several countries Rotary history through songs. He ended with the Beatles and claimed to be the fifth Beatle. I could totally see that.

Oh, somewhere in there, in his talk about friendship, he honored our own Robert Pierce for being the BFF of the club (or something like that). Robert’s awesome and he got recognized for it. Congrats, Robert!

Finally, Dan told us that the focus of 5130 this year is fighting human trafficking and asked us to attend the World Peace Conference on January 24-26 in Rohnert Park. Go to rotarypeaceconference2025.org for more info.

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