Meeting Summary Feb 7, 2012
Greeter: Carla Paul
President’s Greeting: Welcome to the Rotary Club of Mountain View – the BEST club ever. Our call to action for 2011-12 is to “Reach Within to Embrace Humanity”.
Pledge of Allegiance: Bruce Barsi
Thought for the Day: Carla Paul, the lighter side of growing older.
Song of the Day: Phil Armi
Introduction of Visitors: Judy Hannemann. Thomas Dittler - Munich, Germany. Twana’s guest from Atara. Jerylann’s Guest and returning from last week - Tori
General Club Announcements:
· Congratulations to the entire club for a very successful Crab Feed! Alan reported that we grossed $15,600 and then received an additional $500.00 in donations for a net of $16,100. This is $2,500.00 over our net last year.
· Birthday wishes to Jim Spangler, Chuck Osborn and Cheryl Moller (in absentia). Belated birthday wishes to Tom Myers, Roger Kao and M.A.T. Caparas who celebrated birthdays in January. Congratulations to Tom Myers and Hart Sutanto who celebrated their 14th anniversary last month, and to Walt and Patricia Joyce who will celebrate their 16th anniversary on Valentine’s Day. And Barry Cook will mark his one-year anniversary with the club on Thursday.
· Another big birthday: Rotary Internation’s 107th birthday on February 23.
· Scholarship Support – Ken Schwaderer needs several school chairpersons to coordinate the interviews at Los Altos, Mountain View, and the German High Schools. Interviews take about two hours and will be conducted at the school on a day of your choosing. Applications are due March 1st, with interviews conducted sometime before the end of March. Ken requested that people contact him if they are interested in volunteering. Walt was the first to volunteer.
· The Board met last week; lots to discuss – Minutes are going around on the clipboard. Of special note – Jenny-Rebecca Saccardo has resigned due to work obligations and Kim Castro is on extended leave of absence. We continue to look for a permanent meeting location in Mountain View. If you have any leads, please let us know.
· Also going around on the clipboard from the Area 9 mid-year meeting with the District Governor: Mountain View’s annual giving which shows us exceeding target and increased per capita giving despite some challenges with membership. Also on the clipboard – some info about the new membership drive incentive program and an 11-year history of our membership levels.
· Thanks to the club’s generosity and the leadership of Gerry Felix and others, the club also exceeded our goal of $6,847 for the Gates Polio Plus Campaign by nearly $1,000. This includes close to $2,000 raised by our club-sponsored Interacters. On behalf of the club, Gerry accepted a certificate of appreciation for the RI $200M Challenge. Gerry reported that the 50/50 raffle at the crab feed raised an additional $520 for the campaign.
· Foundation Minute – Gerry reported that our club has almost 100% participation. She described a project in Istanbul.
·
Membership Minute – Jerylann Mateo has been finalizing all of the updated materials for membership recruitment. At our meeting last Tuesday at the Cantankerous Fish four people came to meet the club members in attendance. It looks like 3 of the people are interested in becoming members.
Announcements: Bruce Barsi announced that the ski weekend will be taking place as planned in Tahoe the week of March 15-19th (snow or no snow)
Rotary Jeopardy
Bruce fined himself $20.00 for a ski line exit mishap
Bill Maston picked exotic places and got the answer correct but agreed to pay the $50.00
Frank Davila picked famous people and ended up being fined $40.00
Jim Cunningham guessed correctly for Phil A’s favorite pastime but ended up paying his fine as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPEAKER INTRO & PRESENTATION:
Today’s speaker was Steve Schmidt who spoke on Greenhouse Gases & Energy
· What is GHG and why does it matter?
· The main gas in the atmosphere is CO2 and it is tied to energy utilization. 87% of energy comes from hydrocarbons when burned releases the CO2. It matters because the more GHG is released in the atmosphere the hotter the planet becomes.
· The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased exponentially over the past several decades and even when the hydrocarbons are used up the CO2 will remain the atmosphere for thousands of years
· This results in an increase in global temperature and weather patterns being disrupted.
· Steve told us about how he became a believer about GHG when he initially thought the whole idea was ludicrous. He shared an example of his own family’s utilization and talked about some of the simple things he did to bring it down.
· Los Altos Hills did an inventory and now has a plan to reduce GHG
· Mountain View is doing the same focusing on energy efficiency
A sign in sheet was passed around for people in various cities to sign up for an energy audit
Next week’s presenter is Alex Von Feldt, Stewardship Program Director at Acterra. Alex will present on Sustainable Landscaping.
Next week our greeter/thought for the day and scribe isHeather Stenshamn