Meeting Notes from March 12, 2023

Los Gatos Rotary Meeting notes The Cat Tale
 
The meeting was called to order by President Meghan Burton at 12:30 (welcome back Meghan).
 
Pledge was led by Nicholas Welzenbach. 
 
Inspiration from Erika Buck, who inspired us with quotes about strong women in honor of Women’s History Month.
 

Visiting Rotarians:

Suzanne Boxer-Gassman introduced Kathleen Thomas from SJ Rotary and co-chair of ELC.
 

Other visitors:

Dan Snyder’s guest was Melissa Crow who sits on the LGUSD board with him. 
 
Rotarian in the wild was Jeffrey Barnett and his wife, Annemone, on Shady Lane. We have such beautiful views so close to home.
 
 
Thank you, Kathie Benko and Randy Cobb for the adorable eggs decorated for St. Patrick’s Day. We always appreciate the time you put in each week.
 

March Birthdays

  • Linda Lester March 1
  • Tsovo Massena March 1
  • John Colwell March 2
  • Tony James March 2
  • Tom Picraux March 3
  • Matthew Hudes March 3
  • Don McCleve March 4
  • Tom Boyce March 5
  • Matt Mullikin March 5
  • Michelle Strachan March 5
  • Daniel Doore March 17
  • Patti van der Burg March 17
  • Paul Mudgett March 17
  • Edward Graziani March 20
  • Jamie Hekkelman March 25
  • Clayton Bruntz March 30
  • Norman Snyder March 31

March Anniversaries

  • Preston Hill 52 years
  • LeRoy Neider 44 years
  • Don McCleve 32 years
  • Grady Jeter 24 years
  • Craig Roberts 24 years
  • Suzanne Boxer-Gassman 18 years
  • Paul Mudgett 17 years
  • Larry Jinks 16 years
  • Kamyar Negari 15 years
  • Rami Wazni 11 years
  • Haryl Pascal 7 years
  • Laura Douglas 1 year
  • Amy Liang 1 year
  • Karen Briones 1 year
 

Announcements:

We are still collecting for JFS. Please bring items to the meeting on March 19. They are in need of:
  • NEW socks and underwear for adults and children
  • Deodorant
  • LIQUID laundry detergent, NO fabric softener
If you are unable to shop, they can use cash or Target gift cards. Please contact Kirsten Bridges with questions.
 
Rachelle Lopp needs help distributing posters for the Great Race, please see her if you can help.
 
Rise Against Hunger is March 24. The link to signup is http://events.riseagainsthunger.org/SaratogaRotary3/24. This is a great event, children welcome.
 
Blood drive is March 16 at St. Luke’s church. Volunteer slots are full but donors are needed. So far 35 donors have signed up, the goal is 40+.  See Jeffrey Blum if you have questions. Our own Lissa Kreisler will be there with KCAT covering the event.
 
Barry Cheskin asked everyone to complete the survey that was sent out last week. Responses are due March 20. It will take you less time to complete than it took him to make the announcement. 
 
Doug Brent just completed two days of PETS (President-elect training seminar). Training included presidents west of Colorado. Doug’s take aways: everyone was nice, everything was professionally done, speakers were great, he drank the Rotary kool aid. Fun facts: there were 400 presidents-elect attending. Only 30 clubs (including us) have 90+ members. The event takes a year to plan. Doug enjoyed learning about what all the clubs are doing and wonders, even though we do a lot, what more could we be doing? Doug recommends the seminar, give it some thought if you are asked to be president.
 
Right now, Doug is attending Leadership Academy, also recommended. Currently they are learning about the nuts and bolts of how Rotary works. 
 

30 for 30

  • Doug’s son just got married. He has been learning Spanish for the last couple years since the bride’s parents and some family, don’t speak English. He was pleased that he was able to give a couple speeches in Spanish and communicate with the family in conversation. He also mentioned that two days before the wedding his son had his five-year anniversary of sobriety. He spoke about his friends from AA and how they are so smart, funny and mature. Doug gave $500 to the Scholarship foundation.
  • Lissa gave a shout out to the lunch ladies (Cindy Gentile, Kathie Benko and Michelle Myers Nelson and our lunch laddie (Randy Cobb) for the fantastic job they do every week. Jeffrey Baum matched this as did Judy Rodriguez. Judy said she isn’t getting emails for some reason but they were able to get her lunch for her.
  • Sue Heller let us know that another performance of the Fun Time Singers coming up. They perform at Shir Hadash, see Sue for tickets.
  • LeRoy gave $100 to charities in honor of his son’s visit. His son lives in Bali and LeRoy feels so lucky he comes to visit every year. 
  • Suzanne gave in honor being a judge at ELC. She said it was an amazing experience. The students all do such an incredible job.
  • Andrew Howard gave in honor of the week he and his family had with Project Amigo. They had a great time. The people we so kind, go if you have the chance.

Program

Our program today was the group of students who were the third-place winners from ELC this week. Andrew Sterns first spoke about what happens at ELC. The program starts on Wednesday morning when the teams meet and begin coming up with an idea for a business. The teams are made up of students from different high schools so they have to learn how to work with people they don’t know. By Friday afternoon, the business is presented to the judges, shark tank style. The team was introduced by Pat Lucus and James Williams. 
 
The idea from this group was PocDoc. An AI program that can analyze an athlete’s form to help prevent injury and to provide home based remedies should an injury occur. We all enjoyed hearing about the product from the “officers”. The students did a great job with their presentations as well as answering questions from the floor. We are always impressed and inspired by the students from ELC.
 
Next week’s speaker is Angie Warren from JFS.