Meghan Burton began the meeting at 12:30
Claire Vickers presented the Blossom Hill Kindergarten classes who sang three rousing choruses of You’re a Grand Old Flag.
Inspiration: Barry Cheskin: Lessons from Abraham Lincoln.
- Get out of the office and circulate among the troops.
- Persuade people by making friends.
- Admit when you are wrong.
Guests and visiting Rotarians: Matt Mullikin, Rick Rauscher, Thomas Lettiere, Heather Sexton, Lissa Kreisler, Mike Egleston and David Hom.
Rotarian in the Wild: Jean Marc Blanchard at Henry Cowell State Park.
Grande Center For Education, 2nd Annual Fall Benefit: Gae La Torre and Irene Upson represented our club as the center thanked us for our continued support, including the purchase of a new school bus (as part of our Centennial Celebration) for the school in rural San Salvador.
Charities foundation Mission Statement: The mission of the Los Gatos Rotary Charities Foundation is to provide high impact support focused on youth and those in need-locally and globally-through enduring partnerships.
Volunteer Opportunity: Rebuilding Together: Date is October 28, together with Los Gatos Morning Club. Time is 8am-5pm until the project is completed. Address is Timber Cove MHP-127 Timbercove Dr, Campbell. The contact is Kirsten Bridges. We need as much help as we can get and sign ups close Sunday, October 1.
First Tuesday Happy Hour: Tuesday, October 3, 5:30-7:30pm. Location is the home of Marie and Don Rector, 236 Harding Ave LG. Please bring an appetizer to share. Desserts will be provided.
Red wine will also be provided, so if you like white wine or another beverage, please feel free to bring it. Significant others, potential members and friends are all welcome to join us.
We Care Committee: If you know of a Rotarian that is ill, mourning or otherwise in need, please reach out to Lydia Norcia.
Fall Fundraiser: This will take place on November 11 at a 10:30am matinee at the CineLux theatre in downtown Los Gatos. Movie to be determined. Jean-Marc got a very special deal from CineLux for ticket pricing. We are also renting the second floor of the theatre for a quasi- private showing. The second floor can accommodate about 35 people.
Jean-Marc also struck a deal with Willow Street, so if any Rotarians go there to eat after the movie, 20% of the proceeds come back to the club.
Blue Badge Presentation: Paul Johnson presented Mary Lonhart with her blue badge, which she will collect at the next meeting.
Rotary 100 Years of Service: 1924-2004. Mike will be presenting a centennial minute at our meetings. Today he presented, How we started: In 1922, Ed Melvin and Abe Melvin met Rotarians in another city and decided that Los Gatos needed a club. They contacted RI in Chicago and the District Governor thought Los Gatos was too close to San Jose to warrant having our own club. But we were approved because of the town’s separate and distinct business community and the first club meeting was held in Lyndon House in 1924 with 25 charter members. Leroy Neider became a member in 1980 and loves the heart and spirit of this club and the generosity and spirit of our members.
30 for 30: John Colwell donated in remembrance of walking his oldest daughter to Blossom Hill School for kindergarten in 1965.
- Jean-Marc Blanchard donated in celebration of the Autumn Festival in China.
- Gregg Butterfield gave $50 to the Scholarship Fund as a thank you to everyone who helped with set up at Blossom Hill.
- Jeff Blum donated $50 in honor of Lissa sending in her application to Rotary.
- Marty Fishman donated $100 as a thank you to John Pencer for fixing all of the equipment he needs to take in November to Guatemala.
- Carol Abela donated because his son and daughter in law are in their own house and his granddaughter started kindergarten.
- Ron Cassel donated $100 because Randy Cobb introduced him to the music of Andrea Bocelli and he and his daughter had a fabulous trip to Italy to see him in concert.
- Patti van der Burg made the announcement that San Jose Dance Company is having a performance on Oct. 6 and 7 at the California Theater downtown San Jose.
Guest Speaker: Jennifer Lin, the Executive Director of the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce.
Jennifer grew up in Danville and moved to Los Gatos in 2019. She is married with a blended family of 4 teenage boys and a labradoodle. She is also a self confessed hiking and pastry lover.
In her role she would like to support the business community in Los Gatos and help serve the town members and market the town. She just received a $12,000 grant for new street banners in town for 2024. She would like to evaluate where we need to go as a town and just hired an events and marketing manager. She was surprised by how many relationships the chamber holds. Jennifer sees the chamber’s strengths as community involvement and one of the challenges is staff turn over and programming that was discontinued because of Covid. The big fall fundraiser is the wine walk on October 14.
Controversial things that she inherited when taking over the job are parking issues and housing issues.
Ramon asked speed round questions of her favorite things: Hamilton is her favorite musical, Pachinko is her favorite book, F1 Drive to Survive is her favorite Netflix series, Asia and specifically the temples of Cambodia was her favorite vacation, drawing, food of all kinds and scuba diving are her favorite hobbies, she would live in Paris if she could choose one place other than Los Gatos and if she could trade places for a day with one person she would choose Fred Rogers.
Meeting was adjourned by Meghan B.