Meeting Recap Dec 1, 2008 by John Wood

Last Meeting...

For those of you who didn't get the word about the venue change, we hope you enjoyed the international knitting and crocheting convention at the Radisson (which, by the way, does not count as a makeup), as this week's meeting was held at the Double Tree.

After Top Gun Tim called the meeting to order, delivered the invocation, and led us in the (ready, begin) pledge, to the podium next strolled Rick Davis, whose "Rotary Minute" focused on membership. As Rick advised, the current membership count in the club stands at 469, and the goal for TGT's term is a clean and concise 500 (to steal a line from that little outfit that Doug Youngdahl runs, "a new member a week is all we ask").

Following Rick's numerically-inclined minute, TGT provided us with 660 seconds of conversation time (which took this author 4 minutes to figure out how long that was), and then shortly thereafter, the unquestioned best looking Past President of Rotary, Diane Mizell (although Rob Scherer is fetching), graced our presence to talk about the current Toys for Tots campaign that she and Big John Frisch (who was too shy to speak) are co-chairing for the club.

The goal of this worthy endeavor is for our club to provide the Salvation Army with 1,000 new toys (for ages 2-12, with the 9-12 age group in particular need of donations), and you have two meetings left to bring in 2 to 3 new, unwrapped toys to help the cause. In his typically generous way, Big John is going to personally toss an additional Washington into the pot for every toy that the club donates, so lets get out there and make sure a thousand kids get a Christmas present this year, as well as lighten John's wallet by a grand.

Several congrats were due this day - one to Eric Solis, who received the newly-established "Pride of Rotary" award from visiting District Governor (and speaker), Brian Moore, and another to Clayton Lee for being awarded this year's "Quiet Rotarian" award by the DG. Clayton's worthiness of this honor was apparent to all, except Clayton, who was not in the building (now that's quiet). Rounding out the trio was Oleta Lambert, who had an Eddie Mulligan donated in her honor by the Sacramento Region Community Foundation in thanks for her ten years of board service.

Our annual visit from the District Governor came in the form of Brian Moore, who shared with us the goings-on at the Rotary District and International level (by the way, do you know who the Assistant District Governor is? None other than our own Past Prez and retired dentist Skip [drill baby drill] Lawrence).

A couple of tidbits from Brian's speech: Did you know that 30,000 children in the world die each day? That's over 20 a minute, and why Rotary International's goal this year is to impact child mortality through initiatives involving clean water, literacy, and health & hunger intervention (including Portfolio Plus, in which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has made a $100 million matching funds challenge grant to RI, and on which Rotarians have made good on $36 mil of it to date [don't worry, though, Frisch said he'd cover the difference, so that Gates check is as good as on its way]).

Membership is another goal of RI, and do you know which district led all of North America last year in membership percentage growth? That's right, our own. And who is the Chairman of the District-wide membership drive this year? Our own Walter (if your business has gone bust, I'm the one to trust) Dahl. Great job, Walter! Keep up the good work!

Next week's meeting is back at the Radisson, so bring some toys and see you there! JBW Computers Needed by Staff, RCS

Two Computers Needed for YIP Kids

If you have a computer that seems to gather more dust than data since you got that new laptop, and Blackberry, and GPS system, and......

Consider donating it to a young person in the Youth Incentive Program of the Rotary Club of Sacramento. It will go a long way towards reaching our goal of keeping kids in school and preparing them for college.

Contact the Rotary Office.