Bulletin of the Marin Evening Rotary Club

August 31, 2010

President Mark Shirley called us to order, and your Editor led the Club in the Salute to our Flag. This was followed by my thought for the day, a poem entitled Crossing the Border, by Ogden Nash.

We had two visiting Rotarians this week - Kim Kassner from San Bruno and Ann Delaney from Terra Linda. Our guests included Lea Schwartz and our speaker, Steve Jakosa, ex-Rotary ambassadorial scholar from Tiburon.

Good Times were kicked off by Al Shirley who reported on the Club's lunch for the residents of Martinelli House in San Rafael last weekend, where over 50 meals were served. The residents were very pleased with the meal accompanied, as it were, by Roy Barron on piano. For some reason the Tuba players went missing. So long as he was already standing, Al told us that he was one day shy of another birthday, which was close enough for us - so we sang him a round of Happy Birthday to You.

Gene Duffy rose to report that he and Jayne had now served their 5 banquet meals for the year, and in celebration of the completion of that task, Gene thanked the club and presented us with a nice check, though many of us felt that it was the Club which owed a big thanks to them! Gene took advantage of the moment to announce that - seriously, folks - there will be only 2 dinners next year. So, the obvious conclusion, to that is - Bid High.

Patty then arose and told us something about her birthday party, which had not previously been disclosed, which was that she'd asked her birthday party guests to bring checks made out to the Rotary Foundation instead of to her, and that she'd collected several - including some bell ringers. She presented them to the Club amidst a goodly round of applause. Which was followed by another chorus of the Birthday Song.

Announcements were led off by Roy Barron, who reported that Pat Oppenheim (wife of one of our Charter members, Al Oppenheim) had lost contact with ex-Marin Evening Rotarian, Bob Tuttle and inquired if anyone knew how to get in touch with him, for he'd been Pat's computer helper for quite some time, and Pat was lost (computer-wise) without him.

Next, our visiting Rotarian from Terra Linda, Ann Delaney, told us about the upcoming Rotoplast trip to India, scheduled for August, 2011, which their Club is sponsoring. They have 2 fund raisers scheduled, first a special showing of Sky Pilot Chronicles at the Lark Theater on September 29 and second (actually, first) a bocci tournament in San Rafael on September 12. Well experienced in bocci tournaments, Club members quickly agreed that our Club would field one or two teams for the tourney, and sign up sheets were passed around.

Following Announcements we had our raffle of a book entitled the Golden Gate by Kevin Starr, the State Librarian Emeritus (that means he did the job well, for many years, but he's now moved on). And the raffle was won by our speaker Steve Jakosa, who followed this up by ascending to the podium for his talk.

Steve was a Rotary ambassadorial scholar some 30 years ago when he spent a year in Sydney, Australia at the University. He gave us a brief overview of his experiences that year, though he admitted that he's forgotten a lot, as it was so long ago. His talk was interesting, educational and amusing. Perhaps most notable was all the friends he made, not only with Aussies but with other foreigners who were attending the U. of Sydney at the time. One imagines that his experiences that year were a fair help, as he pursued a career in international banking.

Next up was Barbara Gillett, a newish member of the Club. Barbara was born in Oakland (along with several other ME Rotarians) and graduated from San Lorenzo High School. Barbara has 4 children and 3 grandchildren. With a background of working in the hospital field, Barbara now works at Michael's.

And with that we were all dismissed.

Next week will be a real hum dinger. First we'll have a Past President's Minute, presented by Roy Barron, our Club's Charter President, who served as Club President in both 1985 and 1994, and following that we'll have Al Shirley who will recap (and show photos of ?) his recent visit to Egypt on a Rotoplast trip. See y'all then.