Rotary Highlights – January 19, 2012
By Sandie Dewane, Scribe
The meeting was called to order by President Bill Angus. Bob Barr led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and Ron Hunt gave the invocation. President Bill thanked all of today’s volunteers including Jim Edwards as Greeter and Sandie Dewane as Scribe. Jim did a fine job of welcoming us today, but announced that there were no visiting Rotarians or guests. President Bill quipped that even though we wouldn’t be singing the Welcome Song, we still had something to sing about since we are celebrating the October birthdays: Happy Birthday to Rick Bramble, Gabriela Brown, Ann Calvert, and Benita Page. After we serenaded them with the birthday song, they were asked to distribute pieces of their birthday cake to all present. President Bill thanked Sandie Dewane and Belmont Village for providing the cake.
Troy Daum gave the Family of Rotary Report and reported that Bill Bonner will be back with us soon. He reminded us to “Tell –A- Troy” if we have any news about our fellow Rotarians. Maureen Anderson Rouleau, Jim Sommers and Karen Stelman are also on the committee.
In the Bull’s Eye: President Bill reported that January is Rotary Awareness month and focused on Rotary’s global campaign to eradicate polio. We can create awareness in our community by placing “Good-Bye Polio, Thanks Rotary” bumper stickers on our cars. The bumper stickers were developed by our District 5340 and can now be seen worldwide. For the first time, India had no new cases of polio last year!
Charley Crew announced that the deadline for the RB Rotary Foundation Grant application is 1/26/12. President Bill said our twice monthly (1st & 3rd Thursday of the month) happy hour meeting from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. at URGE Gastro Pub resumes tonight. Planning for the RB Rotary Golf Tournament is underway. The date is Monday, April 2, 2012 at the Country Club of Rancho Bernardo.
John Goodrich filled in for Fine Master John O’Neill today and was pretty creative in extracting dollars from all of us during a lively, funny and interactive segment.
Mark Kersey introduced today’s speaker, April Boling, former chair of the City’s Pension Reform Committee. April gave us a realistic presentation of how the City got into the current budget debacle, the current status and steps being taken to reduce the pension liability. The always-creative Gary Saks presented the speaker gift of a book to April.
Next week’s program will be a presentation on the Key San Diego Issues in 2012.
The meeting was adjourned.