Rotary Meeting

Rotary International Past President Cliff and Friends

Rotary Meeting

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It was a blend of the familiar and unfamiliar at our first meeting of 2009 for the Rotary Club of Sacramento- familiar to see some good friends, fellow Rotarians, and the upholstered confines of the Radisson Hotel- yet unfamiliar, as if the absence from our weekly gathering seemed like a winter vacation, rather than a scant two weeks.

In any case, our Top Gun commander, Tim Pinkney, proved that he hasn't lost his touch in running the meeting. Today's events honored two of our own long time members, and featured the passion of former Rotary International Past President Cliff Dochterman.

We opened with the usual call to order, with Top Gun resorting to more audience participation from the podium to get folks to settle down. After 600 seconds of conversation time, our meeting started in earnest. Big Dog Barry White. eh.. Dave Higdon- introduced one visiting Rotarian, a plethora of Prospective Members, and a Parliament of Guests. We're guessing they weren't there for the Burritos!

We were introduced to two new members: Elena Naderi and Phyllis Guillory, both with the specialization of Financial Services. Dough Youngdahl, our featured Rotarian, spoke with his usual eloquence about Blue Diamond's upcoming Centennial, and that they shipped 1.5 billion pounds of almonds, more or less, across the country and around the globe.

We then had committee announcements, with a Loaves & Fishes thanks from John Swentowsky, another membership reminder from Paige Schulte, Monica Sandgathe reminding our runners of the 7:00 AM starting gun on 1/24 for the Arden Arcade Rotary 2 mile "fun" walk/run/muscle pull, and Susan Sheridan plugging the President's Breakfast at the new and swanky Grange restaurant, in the Citizen Hotel. Call the office for details!

We moved on to Wealth Redistribution, with Norm Mashall receiving his honors for his first Eddie Mulligan contribution, and heard from recently returned from sick leave member Brian Kidney (and welcome back!) who spoke passionately about what it meant to have cards and notes from Rotarians while he was in the hospital. Finally, John Frisch noted the donation of 600 toys collected for the Salvation Army toy drive- that he matched dollar for dollar, with another $150 thrown in from his big past president heart!

The real passion of the meeting came next. Our own Past President Walter Dahl took the stage to introduce our guest speaker, and talk about a special award that he was presenting today. Cliff Doctherman, former RI President (1992-1993), presented the "Cliff Dochterman Award" to two of our own members. The award recognizes those Rotarians whom have given back to Scouting programs- and only 299 of those had been handed out, until today. Walter introduced our two RCS recipients- numbers 300 and 301: Robert L. "Bob" Cole and Ludy Langer. Both of these Eagle Scouts are active in the Golden Empire Council for the Boy Scouts of America- and have been involved in helping hundreds of young men and women become better "Scouters", and better citizens.

Dochterman then went on to talk at length (without an opportunity to sit down) about the synergies between Roatary and Boy Scouts of America- both organizations were founded within five years of each other. There are over 25 million Scouters in 155 nations of the world, with 3 million youth and 1 million adult leaders here in the US. Like Rotary, Scouters meet in small groups- and have 50,000 community organizations sponsoring Scout Troops, Explorer Packs, and the like. Because they learn what it takes to be good citizens, Scouters move on to become better people, and usually end up in organizations like Rotary! In this process, "Do a good turn every day" becomes part and parcel of "Service Above Self!".

So it was a passionate meeting, where we heard a past RI president declare "I'm a Rotarian! I'm a Scouter!. The Scouters of America are not just the concern of adults, but the involvement of adults!"

More passionate words were never spoken. It was another great meeting- and if you missed this one, well, see you NEXT at the DOUBLETREE. Maybe we'll have a bonfire. Until then.

-bdm Featured Rotarian Jan 12, 2009 by Staff, RCS

Doug Youngdahl - NUTS DISTRIBUTING-Wholesale

Founded in 1910, the Blue Diamond Growers cooperative led the development of California's almond industry from a minor domestic specialty crop to the world leader in almond production. Headquartered in Sacramento, California, approximately 3000 California almond growers deliver California almonds to all 50 states and more than 90 foreign countries, making almonds California's largest food export and the sixth largest U.S. food export.