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DIGITAL EDITION   No. 33     June 12, 2013     EDITORS:  David Brown & Jim Johnson     PHOTOGRAPHER: Kris Anderson

Our Program For June 19th:

WELCOME ROTARY’S PAST PRESIDENTS

From Bill Pedersen in 1965 to Marnie Goldschlag 48 years later

If you haven’t served as president of the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa just imagine what it must be like to contemplate the 44 Rotarians, or 73, or 87 Rotarians who preceded you as the leader of the oldest and largest Rotary Club in Sonoma County. Open your Roster to Page 49 and there they are! Who are these guys and gals? Next Wednesday is Past President’s Day at our Rotary Club, the opportunity to say hello and thank them for their years of preparation to become president of this remarkable group of Rotarians. Even if it’s only a week since you enjoyed their fellowship.

UPCOMING PROGRAMS….

June 26: The Debunking of President William
July 3:   Celebrate Independence Day. No meeting!
July 10: SSU School of Science & Technology
July 17: President Peggy Soberanis

USEFUL LINKS

Visit our district at: http://www.rotary5130.org
Check out Rotary International at: http://www.rotary.org
Come see us at: http://rotarymeansbusiness.com

OPENING CEREMONIES

The Pledge of Allegiance was led today by special guest, Joan Rousseau, wife of William Rousseau, short term Rotary President. Bill called on Carmen Sinigiani for today’s invocation. In honor of the Third Annual Giro Bello cycling event coming up on July 6^th Carmen shared some hard-found quotes about biking, notably one from the late great writer and author, Ernest Hemingway. We tried to catch Carmen and capture her Hemingway script notes for The Santa Rosarian  and club archives but, like the star athlete that she is, she was already out the door and travelin’ west on 4^th Street.

VISITING ROTARIANS

Three visiting Rotarians today included two local financial advisors—Joe Sobelewski from Healdsburg Rotary and Scott Holder from the Santa Rosa Sunrise Rotary. And Rotarian Arlaine Cervantes, who proudly presented President Bill with the club banner from her home club, the Lake Atitlan Rotary Club in Guatemala, Mexico, and received our club’s banner in return.

GUESTS OF ROTARIANS

Joan Rousseau was introduced by Bill Rousseau, the soon-to-be debunked and almost-past-president. A Red Badger still, Ann Gospe introduced her guest Steve Jung, from the Doubletree Hotel in Rohnert Park. Vikki Bufano, from Hired Hands Home Care in Santa Rosa, was the guest of Doug Johnson and Jack Abercrombie. We welcomed back mortgage broker Carolyn Ivancovich. Jock McNeill introduced his wife Laura McNeill, and Jason Black was back for his third visit to the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa as the guest of Carmen Sinigiani. Welcome, to all our guests.

SUNSHINE REPORT

Penny Tibbetts cheerfully announced that the sun was shining and the skies were clear for this week’s forecast.

ROTARY MAGAZINE QUIZ

Rotary Quizmaster Debi Zaft asked the final Rotary magazine question for this Rotary year and, not surprisingly Past President Steve Olson was the first with the correct answer, giving him three answers in this year’s annual Rotary magazine sweepstakes. Steve is scheduled to compete in the final drawing for the $100 grand prize.

RAFFLE

The omens were not favorable on this day for the nervous ticket holders of all those red tickets. First, one of the perky hostesses failed to appear on schedule. Raffle Czar Nick Knickerbocker sprang into action and sprinted across the room in time to hold the Velvet bag for Blaine Goodwin. In spite of the improving odds and a growing jackpot up to $169, Blaine Goodwin grasped his “lucky” ticket, reached into the bag containing 49 playing cards and two jokers, and withdrew (pause for suspense to build) another queen—the Queen of Spades this week. Blaine was quietly philosophical as he clutched his $10 consolation prize on his way back to the strangely-subdued and so-called “Rowdy Table”.

GIRO BELLO VOLUNTEERS

Doug Johnson stopped off at today’s Rotary meeting on his way to the Rotary International Convention in Lisbon, Portugal. Doug wanted to be sure that every one of us would be working for Giro Bello, barely three weeks from now on July 6^th. Past President Don McMillan remains in charge of securing volunteers to help with set-up & registration on Friday evening, July 5^th and Saturday morning, July 6^th, at the O’Reilly Media Park in Sebastopol. Don is standing by, waiting to take your call, or email, so volunteer, pitch in, and help make the third Giro Bello another success. By the way, when questioned about his week in Costa Rica, Doug swears that he had to attend the Discovery Office System’s business meeting in Central America.

CLUB ROSTER UPDATES

Club Secretary Jack Abercrombie reminded all of us again to check our listings in the annual hard copy of the Roster. The new roster for the next Rotary year—July 1, 2013-14—will go to press this month. Jack suggests you check the old roster for any changes in your email address, business and home addresses, and date of birth. Contact Jack immediately to keep your contact information up to date.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Past President Marnie Goldschlag reminded us that the annual Past President’s Day Luncheon will be next Wednesday at noon in the Flamingo Ballroom. Most of the past presidents plan to attend this once-a-year meeting in their honor, with only two still undecided as of Friday. This year we will test club members on how well they really know some of our more outgoing Presidents of the Past.

President William made a last-minute announcement that a reception for fellow Rotarian Mike Truesdell would be held that Wednesday evening at Cardinal Newman. Mike has been a member of this Rotary Club since he arrived to become president of the private Catholic school in 2004. Mike announced his resignation a few days ago. He is set to become president of St. John’s Jesuit High School & Academy in Toledo, Ohio.

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Aging flyboy Tim Delany took the gamble that he could avoid being penalized for promoting and informing us that the big Sonoma County Air Show—Wings Over Wine Country— will be held in mid-August, Saturday & Sunday, August 17 & 18, at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. Timmy escaped with a $10 slap on the wrist. Well worth the effort!

RECOGNITIONS

Vickie Hardcastle confessed that she and Judge Allan Hardcastle, her husband, will be returning to their first active duty military assignment long, long ago in the wilds of southern Georgia. On the romantic nostalgia agenda are several MLB contests between the Atlanta Braves and the San Francisco Giants. Without a single prompt she pledged to finish Allan’s Paul Harris Fellowship…whatever it takes.

Tim Delany, back from what sounded like an exceptional vacation to central Europe, dropped destinations like Riva, Latvia, Israel, and the Golan Heights but it wasn’t clear where he traded our club’s Rotary banner for the one he presented to President Bill. But you had to love the casual way he paid $50 each for the club, $50 to our local foundation, and $50 to his Paul Harris Fellowship: Across the board!

Doug Johnson stopped by, changing planes and his shirt on the way to Rotary’s International Convention in Lisbon, after spending a mandatory week in Costa Rica to pick up one of his sales awards from Discovery Office Systems. Doug paid for his travels with another triple-play across the board: $50 each for the club, $50 for the Santa Rosa Rotary Foundation, and $50 for his Paul Harris Fellowship.

When faced with visual proof that he had been vacationing on the Big Island in Hawaii, frolicking among the lava flows, Dr. Dan Bornstein, the club’s absentee dentist, argued his case that President Bill’s photographic color evidence was flawed, and got off cheap with a $50 slap on the wrist.

TRUE CONFESSIONS

Never one to pass up a bargain, Kris Anderson volunteered that she was in Las Vegas for “a mortgage industry conference”. She confirmed that her trip was strictly business, even though she did drop the name of master motivator Tony Robbins. She then dropped $15 into the club’s coffers.

Robert Pierce spoke up to recall his recent Scottsdale/Sedona trip but with no further details, except for $15 that he contributed to the club.

Past President Marnie’s daughter graduated from high school, turned 18, and is off on a Road Trip to “Who Knows Where”. Next stop, University of Nevada in Reno. That will be $20 BUCKS, Marnie.

Another past president, Rich De Lambert, has just returned from a hot and humid visit back east to celebrate one more in a long line of grandsons graduating from high school. Did he say that 30 relatives made the trip?

Jack Abercrombie, who attended his granddaughter’s graduation in Minnesota over the weekend, donated $15 to the club in her honor.

After all this time, Debra Smith finally confirmed the rumors that she and the legendary Marvin Ray Dorfman are getting married in only two weeks. She donated $15 to our Rotary Club Foundation. Worth every penny, right Debra?

THE ROTARY YEAR IN REVIEW

This week’s program was put together by President William to give members of the largest and oldest Rotary Club in Sonoma County a broad understanding of all that we have accomplished since this Rotary year began on July 1, 2012. This is a brief summary of his presentation that it will be archived in this week’s issue of The Santa Rosarian. For your information, every issue of this weekly bulletin has been saved digitally since 2005 and may be accessed online from our club’s website.

WELCOME TO NEW ROTARIANS

A positive year thanks to two successful membership drives!
John Berto sponsored by John Breazeale
Jane Duggan sponsored by Shannon McConnell
Judy Glenn sponsored by Steve Olson
Manuela Gonzalez sponsored by Kerrie Chambers
Elizabeth Karbousky “team-sponsored” by JackDianeDoug
Ann Gospe sponsored by Jeff Gospe
Darren Elliot sponsored by Robert Pierce
Ray Giampaoli sponsored by Deborah Gray

FUNDRAISING

Virtually everything that the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa does for the local communities we serve: The club’s devotion to scholarships, young people & education, world community service, grants and joint projects, and even the business of being a Rotary Club, depends on our success in fundraising. This past year the Giro Bello cycling event generated about $50,000. The extravagant public event, Casino Royale added another $18,000 to club coffers. Much of the club’s membership support goes into those funds. Member contributions to their individual Paul Harris Fellowships total almost $10,000 a year to be divided between Rotary International, the district, and local Rotary activities. Almost every dollar that is generated goes to so many worthwhile projects, grants, incentives, and worthwhile goals that fundraising seems like a never-ending chore. And it is never-ending: As soon as Rotary allocates those funds to everything we do, we see what else needs to be accomplished by our part of the world’s first service club. In December this year, this Rotary Club marks its 92^nd anniversary of helping others.

SCHOLARSHIPS & EDUCATION

☻         Funds from the new Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Foundation and more than a dozen endowed scholarships combined to award individual $1,500 scholarships to each of ten qualified and deserving students that will enable them to complete their educations at top-quality colleges & universities. Our club foundation also donated $5,000 to the SRJC Scholarship fund.

☻         This May, our club contributed $5,000 toward the SRJC Rotary Student Center for Leadership
naming rights of a room on the SRJC campus. All 18 Rotary Clubs in Sonoma County (every club an offspring of the county’s first Rotary Club) will contribute to support the new Student Leadership Center.

Rotary Club of Santa Rosa local funds & scholarships:

• Lawrence P. Bello Memorial Vocational Scholarship Fund

• John E. Brown Memorial Veterans Scholarship Fund

• Joe Dorfman Memorial Scholarship Fund

• Spencer & Shirley Flournoy Memorial Engineering Scholarship Fund

• Stan L. Lance Memorial Leadership Award & Scholarship Fund

• Jack Levar Memorial Marketing & Communications Scholarship Fund

• Wally Lowry Honorary Business Scholarship

• Holli Plummer Honorary Scholarship Fund

• Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Foundation Trustees Fund

• Pluth Educational 3^rd Grade Dictionary Funsd

• The Drucquer Fund

• Wes Jaimison Agricultural Fund

• The Rotary Memorial Legends Fund

Local support of youth education:

☻            For more than 25 years, every month of each school year, this Rotary Club has individually honored outstanding students from each Santa Rosa High School. Each student is invited to a Rotary Club meeting where they are introduced to the club by their principal and receive the award trophy.

☻            Every winter this Rotary Club participates in a volunteer hands-on project that gives a beautiful dictionary to every third grader in the Santa Rosa School District. Purchased by our Rotary Club, the dictionaries are delivered to the schools by volunteers.

☻            The 2012-13 District Youth Exchange funded student Leah Steiger, outbound to Finland. And student, Wan-Ling “Sophia” Lai, inbound from Taiwan.

☻         “The French Connection” Group Study Exchange Team of six young adults working in diverse careers spent a month visiting with the Rotary Clubs of District 5130 and learning about life & careers in northern coastal California.

☻         Our Rotary Club supported the Healdsburg Rotary Scholar Athletes Awards Program. June 16-21 we participated in the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards given to Margaret Botka and Brandon Sims.
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☻         A traditional Christmas party and a spectacular ballet performance of the Nutcracker Suite are calculated to overwhelm the senses of the disadvantaged children who are our first-time guests each new holiday season, but what blows their minds is the personal visit from “Santa Tim” as the most authentic Old St. Nick, with at least three sleighs overloaded with presents, cute and twinkly helpers, and all the cookies and soda pop any hot & overdressed 10 year old could want. Here’s the secret though…the most fun of all is enjoyed by Tim and his Rotary volunteers.

☻         Rotary also supported Interact Clubs from Santa Rosa High School and Cardinal Newman High School Interact’s Roseland Prep Projects.

☻         This Rotary Club has a long history of supporting youth in agriculture through the purchase of livestock products during the Sonoma County Fair. We also took advantage of the unique opportunity— thanks to the Petaluma Little League team’s trip to the national championships—to support the Ugandan Little League Team’s purchases of much-needed baseball equipment.

WORLD COMMUNITY SERVICE

This committee of the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa budgeted $12,000 for 2012-13 in support of these projects in partnership with other local clubs.

○  Sabalos Surgery Center Nicaragua: $6,000

○  Project Amigo Scholarships: $4,300

○  Honduras Water Project: $600

○  Shelter Box Program: $1,000

○  Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Eye Surgery Project: $100
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ROTARY’S PUBLIC SAFETY AWARDS

This will be the 20^th year for Rotary’s annual Safety Awards which were put together in the early 1990’s by an attorney, a retired corporate executive, the owner of a hardware store, a former broadcast journalist, and a retired police detective, fellow members of the Santa Rosa Rotary Club to fulfill Rotary’s commitment to Vocational Service. It’s amazing how ideas become traditions and keep building over time. Rotary’s Safety Awards have become part of the Rotary Club’s public image.
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ROTARY FELLOWSHIP & COMMUNITY IMAGE

• Nothing is more “hands-on” than when fellow Rotarians pitch in to work as a team committed to helping others. Like this spring’s Rebuilding Together project at New Directions School on the outskirts of Santa Rosa. It was a long day but when it ended, even the teachers would not recognize the ground and buildings.

• When it’s time for District 5130 leaders to meet, they can always count on the Mother Club’s active members to show up, set-up, participate, and  clean up, most recently at the District Conference on the edge of historic Railroad Square in Santa Rosa. Sam McMillan and Ted Wilmsen were part of the Sergeant-at-Arms Committee for the Conference & the Assembly. The attendees from the Santa Rosa clubs were impressed and we are proud of those guys.

• Our own Sergeant-at-Arms Committee is something we can also be proud of. We don’t notice all the work they do before and after the weekly meetings. We would only notice if they didn’t take care of the preparation, set-up, then securing it all after the rest of us leave.

• There’s a lot of that behind the scenes stuff going on. Take the logistics of succession planning. Incoming president Peggy Soberanis started preparing for her presidential year since she took on the responsibility several years ago. Mark Burchill has completed most of his preparations and it won’t be long before the board selects a successor for Jose Guillen, who is not yet the president-elect.

• In fact most of us might be surprised at how much time and energy is required to keep the Rotary machine in operation. Imagine all the emails, phone calls, record-keeping, head counting and planning ahead. Club communications include the daily website, weekly bulletin, even those great socials that Debi puts together require thought & preparation. Fellowship is a vital ingredient for most organizations and Rotary Clubs are no exception.

JOINT CHARITABLE PROJECTS

$25,000 in Local Foundation and Club Funding:

Santa Rosa Tool Library: $2,000
Women’s Recovery Services: $2,500
Tomorrow’s Leaders Today: $2,500
Sonoma County YWCA: $5,000
National Alliance for Mental Health: $2,400
Sonoma County Veterans Connection: $2,000
Santa Rosa Rotary & Kiwanis Clubs Veterans Day luncheon
Social Advocates for Youth: $5,000
The Salvation Army Santa Rosa Corps: $2,200
Kids Scoop Foundation: $1,400

RI POLIO PLUS CONTRIBUTIONS 2012-13: $5,000

OFFICERS

Rotary Club of Santa Rosa

President: Bill Rousseau, President Elect: Peggy Soberanis, Secretary: Jack Abercrombie, Treasurer: Cecil G. Humes, Sergeant at Arms: Jack Geary

President Rotary International

Sakuji Tanaka – Rotary Club of Yasjio, Japan

Governor, District 5130

Michael Juric – Rotary Club of Windsor

Attendance Secretary

Jack Abercrombie P.O. Box 505 Santa Rosa, CA 95402 707-538-4770

Board of Directors

Matt Fannin, Jose Guillen, Paul Hamilton, Nicole Le, Diane Moresi, Vinay Patel, Robert Pierce, Carmen Sinigiani, Creed Wood, Marnie Goldschlag, Past President