Non Meeting Notes -- March 31, 2020

Non Meeting Notes

March 31, 2020

 

Hi All.  Hope everyone is doing okay and making the best of our opportunity to get to know our partners a little more and finish those projects at home that we have been putting off for awhile.

 

Here’s our news for this week:

 

 

From President Tom:

Tonight’s Rotary Social at the Cunningham’s is cancelled

All Club Meetings and Events are cancelled through the end of April

Tom will be working with President Elect Paul to schedule a Virtual Club Meeting possibly using Zoom.  More details on this to follow.

 

If anyone knows of any of our members in distress or that need anything, please let President Tom or one of the Board Members know.  We want to make sure everyone knows that we are here to take care of each other.

 

The Board voted to send a check for $8,000 to the Community Services Agency which is half of this year’s grant funds.  The grant application period closes today and the Board will be meeting shortly to decide how to distribute the remaining grant funds.

 

Thanks to Jim Cochran who provided us with a library of the photos he has taken for the Club for the last several years.

 

 

This is an opportunity for us to share whatever information we would like so we can keep up with what everyone is doing these days.

 

From Bert: St. Patrick's Day was less than two weeks after we moved into our new digs at the Sunny View Retirement Community in Cupertino. To get away from unpacking boxes for a while, we volunteered to follow the holiday refreshments' cart as it wandered the hallways and villas greeting all the residents. With dulcimer and fiddle, Anne and I asked our new neighbors what Irish tunes they might like to hear. "Oh Danny Boy" was the most popular, and we could improvise that pretty well. It was fun for all concerned.

 

 

 

 

From Stephen Nichols:  You have to look at the positives. Commuter traffic is nonexistent leading to low levels of air pollution. I go up to Skyline Boulevard to take pictures of SF Bay. We may never see such clear skies again.

 

From Heather:  We escaped to the beach.  Fredrik bought our retirement house a year ago in Cayucos. I’m trying my best to be a teacher (crazy thing is my two sisters are Elementary school teachers), plus prepare taxes. Fredrik ‘rented’ space at the neighbors to have quiet hours during the loud school hour. No worries, that vacation house is empty. The boys favorite hour is PE, mostly football on the beach, see pic. We are grateful for our little town and peaceful beach.

 Thinking of you all and sorry I can’t lend a more helping hand. We hope to stay safe here until May 1st. Miss you all!! 

Hugs,

Heather

 

 

From Ken:  The scholarship committee has selected our scholars for SFHS, MVHS, LAHS and AVHS. The regional meeting will be April 3. This year it will be a virtual meeting. We will meet with the other Mountain View-Los Altos organizations who grant scholarships. We will review all of the selections at the meeting. This year’s MV Rotary committee includes Bruce Barsi, Judy Hannemamn, Jim Spangler, and Ken Schwaderer as chair. We are planning to present our scholars at our May 5 club meeting or non-meeting.

 

From Sheila:  This is certainly a strange time- like wartime but without blackout or rationing, yet!  We used to gather round the radio for the nine o'clock news from the BBC with announcements of missing aircraft or torpedoed ships. Let us hope the global effect of this virus will make nations more co-operative and peaceful.
 

From Scott:  I continue working for Villa Siena, though from home now with occasional visits to my office. We are not doing any new admissions, which I take care of, and my marketing duties can be handled remotely. I am also taking care of my fundraising duties mostly from home. There are no illnesses at Villa Siena, and we are working hard to keep it that way: no visitors, constant disinfecting, social distancing/small groups maintained inside, sheltering in place, and more. Of course, the nursing, social work/activities, housekeeping, facility staffs are extra busy caring for the just over 100 seniors residing at Villa Siena, averaging age 90 with a handful right now being over 100 years old.  

 

From Fred:  Nothing very exciting.  We have a specific exemption from shelter-in-place so it is work as usual.  Clients have to mail their tax stuff or drop it off in a box outside of our office door.  Only USPS or FedEx is allowed into the lobby.

 

From Cathy:  Today is day 14 of what seems like an endless ‘Shelter in Place’ directive. I know it isn’t endless, but fighting an invisible enemy feels like living in a mysterious future full of very, very tiny and unseen invading creatures. I guess we’re there!

 

In an effort to keep this email short (okay, it isn’t very short), I thought I’d share what I’ve accomplished from my “Someday When I have the Time” to do list and checkoff the completed items over the next few weeks. After the first few days spent talking to friends and family on the phone, gathering a few basic food supplies and thoroughly cleaning the house, here’s the first two weeks checked boxes:

 

1. Install two wall shelves on brackets in my guest room so I could set up my extra TV that had been sitting on the floor wrapped in bubble wrap since September 2018 when I moved back into my home after the fire next door.  The shelves now hold some of my art supplies, and after a trip to Xfinity where the sales clerk helped me while I stood outside the front door, my guest room TV now works!  Now if I could only have a guest come visit...

2. Clean out my files and recycle or shred what’s no longer needed. That was completed last night while "The Voice” was entertaining me. 

3. Currently, I’m ‘in progress’ cleaning out fifteen years of old arts and craft supplies that were stored in boxes so long the inks have dried and glue has hardened. Of what’s left that’s salvageable I plan to turn into Easter and other occasion greeting cards. After all, who wouldn’t be happy to receive a hand made greeting card, or a real letter via the USPS mail for that matter? Especially now that so many of us have become ‘shut-ins’.

4. Finally, I am going to try to connect with a friend or family member every day via the telephone, just to say hello, hear a real voice and see how they’re doing. So far I’ve reached a friend in Boston who I met in Sicily and another who moved to Oregon several years ago. This follows a call to me from a friend who I worked with in Cleveland, Ohio over 30 years ago. She contacted me last Thursday, just to say hello. My friend turned 91 last year. What a treat to talk with her and catch-up on the news! Priceless. 

 

I still have 6-7 more things on my “Someday When I have the Time’ list.  I’ll probably find a few more before I see you all again!  

I miss you!

 

 

Just to bring a few smiles:

 

 

 

 

 

Remember, send me some stuff so we can make this interesting and keep it going. And don’t forget the photos. Send it to bbarsi@msn.com.  And take good care of yourselves.