Meeting Summary May 21, 2013

The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Gerry Felix.

The Thought for the Day was given by Twana Karney on the topic of success, to celebrate Rotary's success with Polio Plus. At Rotary U last week, it was mentioned that Rotary may succeed in eradicating polio from the world by 2016 if all goes as planned. The quote for the day was "Strong lives and organizations are motivated by dynamic purposes; lesser ones exist on wishes and inclinations. The most glowing successes are but reflections of an inner fire."

Song of the Day: Phil Armi led the group in everyone's favorite, "If You are Happy in Rotary..."

Introduction of Visiting Rotarians and Visitors: Visiting from Los Altos Sunset were Bill Mayhood and Enos Resmini. From Poona, India, Prakash Telany visited our club once again while he is here visiting family. Paul's wife Susan Reinhart was a guest of Rotary.

Finemaster Bruce fined  Craig Goldman and Jerylann Mateo in Rotary Jeopardy.

President Judy Hannemann shared a Rotary Moment on the topic of Peace Through Service and what it means.

New Members were inducted by President Judy Hanneman. The new members are: Tori Corbett, Craig Goldman, Scott Johnson, Paul Reinhart, and Jack Wong. Kevin Chiapello was not present but was also inducted as well.

The Paul Harris Fellowship Presentation was made by Gerri Felix to Kiwanian John Akkaya of Mountain View's Don Giovanni Restaurant for service that exemplifies Rotary values. In particular, John opens his restaurants each Thanksgiving Day to serve 1000 to 1500 people a free Thanksgiving dinner.

Announcements:

Squaw Creek at Tahoe: 12 of us will be going this Friday to enjoy the free rooms and amenities won by our Club in the District 5170 Membership and Foundation Giving contest. Among other activities, the group will joining Bruce at his Tahoe home for a barbecue on Saturday night.

Golf and Barbecue and Poker: Friday, June 7. See Walt Joyce for details.

Kick-Out: Sunday June 30th. Anita Grossman mentioned that this is a mandatory event. It is a fun celebration of all that has happened this year.

The June District Cabinet and End of Year Celebration and Thank You's will be Wednesday, June 5 at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose. If interested, let Judy or Bruce know.

District Governor Joe Hamilton's Kick-out - Roast and Toast: This event will be Thursday, July 18 at at Saratoga Springs. This is usually a fun event, especially if a group is organized to go.

Pres Elect Alan Goodman passed around a sign-up sheet for organizing speakers for each month of the year. In particular, he asked for someone to take July, since only three speakers were needed to be lined up. Alan also pointed out that the District website has a list of speakers who have been successful at other clubs and would be open to speaking at other clubs like ours if you need ideas. Please contact Alan Goodman to sign up for your month!

Speaker Program: We were honored to have our own member M.A.T. Caparas, former president of Rotary International, as our speaker. He is a retired lawyer and was the Rotary International president in 1986-1987. He has held two positions in government - the first was as a delegate to the constitutional convention and the second as the chairman of a presidential commission. He is an inactive member of the California bar. He once chaired a California bank owned by the Philippine government. He is also a "Pioneer of Polio Plus" awardee.

M.A.T. Caparas gave his thoughts on Rotary in his talk. He has been a member since 1970. He considers the Red Badge meeting an important occasion, because nothing is more important than bringing in new members. In 1986, Rotary membership reached 1 million strong. He thought that the growth of 20 percent in membership in Rotary over the 27 years since then was simply not enough. Rotary's goal now is to have 1.3 members by 2014. He mentioned that one idea for increasing the membership might be to offer a pin for Rotarians who introduce new members. He commends President Judy for bringing in 6 new members this year to Mountain View.

M.A.T. then urged all of us to help our Red Badgers learn about Rotary as fast as possible.

Rotary, he mentioned, was started by four lonely men in Chicago. We now have 1.2 million members around the world who would welcome us as a friend. We have $100M in grants per year for International projects. 41,000 students were sent to Universities thanks to Rotary. Rotary has a Peace Program at 6 universities in 6 countries. Our greatest conflict prevention program is Polio Plus.

M.A.T also played a role in bringing women into Rotary. He believes that bringing women into Rotary has been a very good thing.

He closed by saying that the most important Rotarian is the ordinary Rotarian.

NEXT WEEK: May 28 we will introduce our Grant Recipients - Non-profits in the community to whom we are giving grants. They will each give a thumbnail sketch of what their organization does.

Our "three-fer" for next meeting, May 28, will be Kevin Chiapello.

President Judy's Rotary Dream for this year: Each member will attend every meeting possible, arriving before 12:15 each week, taking on at least one club responsibility during the year, and brining in at least one new member this year!