Meeting called to order by President Nicholas Welzenbach.
Jeff Barnett led us in the pledge.
David Hubbard’s inspiration was in honor of International Women’s Day. He is always inspired by his wife and daughter. David spoke about the accomplishments of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell who was the first female doctor in the United States. David’s wife, Kavitha, is a doctor, many of their female friends and family are doctors. David’s daughter once asked if men can become doctors too. He left us with this, Cinderella never asked for a prince. She just wanted a night out and a dress.
Nicholas reflected on the fact that Rotary added women in 1987. He was not a part of Rotary before there were female members, he can’t imagine our club without all the women who do so much.
Guests:
- John Cowell introduced Emi Ito, from Boy Scout Troop 2.
- Lydia Norcia introduced Serenity Polizzi from the Los Gatan.
- Dick Konrad introduced Dick Grove from the LG Senior Commission.
- Gae La Torre introduced Larry Maggio who is visiting us for the second time.
Announcements:
- The song today was Extreme Ways by Moby. Suggested by Richard Bobis.
- Correction from last Cat Tale: Our first sponsor for the Great Race is Sereno Group. They donated $15,000.
- Thank you to Randy Cobb and Kathie Benko for their Mardi Gras and Spring themed eggs.
- District 5170 will be donating wheelchairs in Mexico City in July. We passed the hat at a meeting a while ago. Thanks to all.
- Services for Richard Irion will be held March 26 at 11:00 at St. Andrews Church. Nicholas asked for a moment of silence in his honor.
- We honored three Rotarians who each celebrated 50 years with the club. They are: John Pencer, Charles Goss, and Preston Hall. All three received our exclusive LG Rotary 50-year pin, presented by Ron Cassel. Preston came all the way from his home in Mt. Shasta to receive his pin. Congratulations and thank you to all of you for your years of service.
- Ron also spoke about one of his former students, Sammy L. Davis, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in Viet Nam. Mr. Davis will be speaking at our club on April 19. This will be a special meeting. More details to follow.
- Janice LeFevre from Saratoga Inner Wheel spoke about the fundraiser for the Mylelectric Limb Project. This project provides upper body limbs for children from ages 6 months to 18 years. Inner Wheel clubs from all over the country have raised $1M for this cause!
- We are invited to celebrate 110 years of Girl Scouting on March 12 from 12:00-4:00 at Camp Bothin.
- Tom Boyce is contacting Shelter Box to see what can be done to help those in Ukraine.
- April 2 is Rise Against Hunger with Saratoga Rotary.
- May 1 is the Great Race.
Program:
Our speaker was Apurva Mehta from Stanford Linear Accelerator. The title of his talk was Navigating High Dimension Spaces with Artificial Intelligence. He focused on the work they are doing to find new materials to solve many of our current problems such as reducing CO2 from fuel. For instance, how do you develop cars that are lighter, safer, easier to repair, and can be recycled? He likened it to finding buried treasure in trash. There are millions of undiscovered materials from 30 common, non-toxic, earth-friendly metals and metalloids.
Nicholas mentioned we had 250 years of Rotary service in the room from just 5 members.
Thank you to Randy C. and Lisa Cheskin for all your work with facilities.
Next week’s speaker is Folake Phillips, Founder and Executive Director AWO.
Thought for the week:
Why fit in when you were born to stand out?
-Dr. Seuss