Giro Bello

–> The Giro Bello is this Saturday! June 29, 2024.  Register to reserve your spot for one of the most scenic and fun bike rides on the West Coast – Now with a new start and finish, the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa.  Click here for more info and to register.

–> The Giro Bello Bike Ride, our major fundraiser for the year, is happening soon. We need all hands on deck to make this event work. Please click on the link below and sign up to help. Ask family and friends to work alongside you. Find multiple times and ways that you can participate. Together we can make this a successful event!

The areas that are in greatest need of help are:

• Route marking
• Site set-up
• Registration
• Truck drivers
• Equipment trailer driver
• SAG
• Lunch stop

–> Please sign up to volunteer for the Giro Bello HERE

UPCOMING SOCIALS & PROJECTS & EVENTS  

For pictures and descriptions of previous socials and other events click here.

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

More socials, projects, & events coming soon!

Opening

Past President Jeff Kolin, “Welcome to the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa where we have fun by doing good in our world.”   Past President Jeff also led us in the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance and the Four-Way Test.  Jeff was assisting President Ann with her meeting today due to knee surgery that was done just before the meeting. President Ann was not going to allow knee surgery to keep her from her last “official” meeting. PP Jeff’s Reflection was on the history of Juneteenth.  The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in 1863, but not all slaves were notified of their freedom right away.  The last to know were the slaves in Texas on June 19, 1865.  So, in 2021 June 19 became our “second Independence Day.”

Visitors:

No visitors and visiting Rotarians today.

Sunshine Report:

President Ann had knee surgery. Next month she and the family are heading to Europe so she better be able to walk!  President Elect Casey D’Angelo is home with Covid!

Opportunity Drawing (aka Raffle):

Pete Lescure said we had $58.00 in the pot and an unknown number of marbles. “4112” was the number pulled, but blind-as-a-bat, Kris Anderson, could not read her ticket to see that was hers!  Duh! Finally, she figured it out…. but pulled a yellow marble.  The $10.00 went into the Polio Pail on her table.

Announcements:

1. Steve Reuter’s memorial is this Sunday, June 23 at Paradise Ridge Winery.
2. We passed the basket around to collect tips for our waiters.
3. Giro Bello now has 540 riders signed upon Wednesday – 560 on Friday! We are going to get at least 600!!!!!
4. The Giro Bello still needs more volunteers for various jobs. Among them are:  road marking, Willowside rest stop, truck drivers and SAG drivers.  See Heather or SignUp Genius to see what jobs are available and sign up.  Volunteer your friends and neighbors!
5. PP Kris announced that next week’s meeting is President Ann’s Debunking! The debunking committee met after the meeting to go over the logistics. Set up on Wednesday, June 26 is at 4:00.  The party starts at 5:30. The food arrives at 6:15 and dinner will be served about 6:30.  The program is at 7:00.  We have, at least 40 going, but not everyone that says they are going have signed up yet.  Please let Debi Zaft and/or Karen Ball know you are coming if you have not signed up yet!  The cost is $35.00 per person/$60.00 per couple.  This fee includes You do not have to bring a thing.
6. There was a meeting Wednesday morning to discuss the next round of financing for Ukraine. Participating in the conversation is our club, East/West, Healdsburg and Cherkasy. There is a huge need for power and there are plans for expanding the current mental health supports for children to also include medical supports.
7. Andrea Geary is looking for copies of our By-Laws, Articles of Incorporation and Nonprofit documents. Debi suggested looking in our safe deposit box. Karen may have them (she was not at the meeting).  Mark Burchill thinks he may have them (Kris Anderson has the Strategic plan from Jeff’s year, the Bylaws dated June 10, 2020, our insurance certificate for liability from her year, if that helps).
8. Mark Burchill spent a month in India for Rotary Means Business. He brought us back a flag from Bangalore.  RMB is bigtime in India!
9. No meeting on July 3. On July 10, our new president, Casey D’Angelo will give us an overview of his upcoming year.

Steve Olson is in the Ag Teacher Hall of Fame!

Does this really surprise anybody?  Steve was a teacher for 20 years at SRJC and an administrator for another 20 years.  He was one of five teachers admitted to the Ag Teacher’s Hall of Fame this year for the state of California (A former faculty member submitted his application for this award).  Steve was surprised and honored.  He and the other four were feted at this year’s Ag Teachers Conference.

Recognitions:

Steve Olson’s twin grandkids, Aramus and Aubrey graduated from SRJC this year.  He donated $200.00 each to the Jameson Fund. They will be off this fall to finish their degrees.

Jim Green said that it has been exactly one year since he visited our club the first time and knew he had found his new Rotary home. He is gratified that we adopted the fifth article to the Four-Way Test, “Will it be fun?”  He donated $100.00 to the club.

Auction:

Past President Ray was put to work with his auction skills to raffle off some Rotary items so that President Ann met the club’s annual giving for the year.  We were about $300+/- off and the goal was to send her over the top.  Here are the items, who got them, and what they donated:

Kim Murphy paid $150.00 for a bird house from the Elsie Allen HS Ag Barbeque.

Pete Lescure paid $25.00 for a wood cutting board with a lamb on it.

Diane Moresi paid $50.00 for some meat dry rubs from Texas

Heather Thurber paid $20.00 for an Australia pin and salts from last year’s convention

Mary Graves and Jeff Kolin each paid $15.00 for baseball caps from last year’s Sonoma County Fair Ag Auction.  They insisted that Steve Olson autograph them.

Jeff Kolin and Heather Thurber each paid $15.00 for a tie from the Australia Convention.

Fred Levin paid $100.00 for 3 men’s Rotary T-shirts.

Someone paid $30.00 for a Rotary club of Santa Rosa 75 anniversary apron (sorry I don’t know who got it.

Ted Wilmsen paid $80.00 for a Concourse D’ Elegance T-shirt from the late 1990’s.

A special thank you to Gordon Shurtleff, a former member who now lives down south in Torrey Pines for sending us the clothes to auction off.

President Ann’s Farewell Address to the Club as our President:

Due to President Ann’s knee surgery this morning, Ann sat down to go over the highlights from her year as President, goals met or not met as the case may be.

1. She had a goal to have 80 members by the end of the year.  While we did not reach this goal, our attendance at the weekly meetings, participation at our socials and projects grew this year. That is a win!
2. She wanted 12 socials this year and if we did not meet this goal, we came very close!
3. She hoped to have 30 members at District Conference. We had 13, but our club had more attendees than any other club in District 5130.  that’s a win!
4. The annual giving goal was $15,000. With today’s action, we exceed that goal!
5. Paul Harris Bucks – she is not sure how many she gave out. If you got some, see Doug Landin to get credit.
6. Polio Plus had a goal of $6000 and we exceed that goal for $11,072.
7. Many thanks to Mary Graves for keeping the SRJC Rotaract Club and Global Rotaract Alum growing and thriving.
8. We sent two kids to RYLA this year. Thank you to Charlie Howard-Gibbon, Peter Holewinski, and Tasia Henderson for their work to make this successful.  One of the students, Joe Johnson, plans to start an Interact Club at Cardinal Newman with Peter Holewinski acting as his advisor/mentor. Ann wants to help the club be more involved in the RYLA activities next year.
9. The plan was for 18 service projects this year. We did 22.
10. Ann wanted us to be in the media with two stories. We got a big one with our work in Ukraine when Denys visited last Fall.  It got us a $5000 contribution from the couple that they bought their house from.  This visit also got us airtime on KCBS and KRON. There was a recent story that ran in winebusiness.com and Jeff Gospe was featured sharing our efforts in Ukraine.
11. Thank you to Susan Nowacki for a whole year of outstanding programs.
12. Thank you to Fred Levin who restarted our Veteran’s program!
13. Thank you to the Rotary Club of Healdsburg and the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa East/West for their continued support for Ukraine. A special thank you to Curt Groninga, Jeff Gospe, and Jeff Kolin for their tireless work on this project.
14. Thank you to the International Service Committee for raising $8000 over and above the club budget of $17,000 to support Ukraine, Tutu Desks, Amigos de Guatemala, Project Amigo, Peanut Butter Project, Telemedicine, and Global Grant water projects in Zimbabwe and Haiti!
15. Our club donated $8000 to the fire survivors in Lahaina Hawaii.
16. We raise $4000 more than ever before at the Ag BBQ auction thanks to Ray’s encouragement to get an actual auctioneer. Sam Dolcini had a great time and plans to return this coming fall.
17. Thank you for your support of Youth Exchange, a program that changes lives (our students and us). Many clubs are no longer supporting this valuable program.  Isidora will be going home soon, but we have a short-term student to Spain and we will be sending Bronwyn Gunderson to Chile this fall.  Our club had an extra qualified student that was picked up by the Rotary Club of Arcata. She will be on exchange in Taiwan.
18. Thank you to Sam McMillan for 24 years serving on the Rotary Club of Santa Rosa Foundation Board.
19. The Children’s Christmas program was back and Natasha Perez did a fabulous job with her team.
20. We worked with the Salvation Army on bell ringing, the Redwood Empire Food Bank on a monthly basis, Pepperwood Preserve, Arundo Donax Removal with the local ESRAG group and the Russian River Keepers.
21. She loved that we helped with the community panels for Roseland Collegiate Prep and Roseland University Prep.
22. The reading program Casey D’Angelo started at the Roseland Boys and Girls Club was a success and Ann intends to continue and grow that program this coming year.
23. We had a successful transition to and roll out of the Book of Why to our local third graders
24. Heather Thurber to helping us get an in on the Greenway project that is in development
25. Other donations: Simply Strings/Santa Rosa Symphony, Verity, Pepperwood Preserve, Sponsoring the Food Drive door hangers for the Scouts. Ann is working on growing our physical support of and active engagement at Pepperwood. We are not only sponsoring the Scout’s efforts, but will also actively support them in their collection, sorting, and distribution of the food gathered.
26. We are working with Santa Rosa East/West to replace the Rotary wheel at the north end of town. This will be installed soon.

“Thank you for trusting me to lead our club this year.”

Additional Pictures: