Club History - Accomplishments

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Palo Alto Rotary 2010/2011

These are notes from President Art Stauffer's address to the

Palo Alto Rotary Club in the June 18, 2007 meeting.

The Club has had a great year and a lot of people have worked hard to make it a success and to achieve our objective of giving back something to the global community.

Let me re-cap a few of the highlights

Membership – Steve Emslie,     Ruth Schneider, Joyce Cusick, Bob McCowen

• We added 14 new members with two more approved and ready to be inducted
• Started with 140 and ended with 145 -- 149 including our honorary members

Financial – Mike McMahon 

• $5,000 Surplus in Operations and $12,000 surplus in Charities
• Charities working reserve of one year of budget – about $100,000 and operations about $35,000

Website – Joyce Cusick, Bill Busse, Bob McCowan

• Built and maintained a website that is world class for Rotary Clubs – a Herculean job
• It is kept up to date on a daily basis
• New pictures courtesy of Dan Quinn and bios on all members kept up to date by Bob McCowan

Meetings

Programs – Carl King

• We have had some really great speakers
• Thanks to the Program committee

Opening Remarks – Martha Kanter

• Managed well and never missed a date
• Great messages from our speakers

Music – Skip Hoyt, Brian Steen and Lyricist Le Levy have kept our songs at a professional level

Dana Tom and his cashier crew have accurately collected all of our lunch money and this was done even considering that he employed such amateurs as Roger Smith and Steve Heitel

 Palo Alto Rotary - Club History - Awards 2006/07

• Philanthropic award
• 85^th anniversary commendation from the County Board of Supervisors
• Philanthropic Society Award
• Rotary International President’s Citation
• District and Zone Literacy award
• Health and Hunger award at the Gold Level
• Best Pinion for supersized clubs – Lyle Connel

Social – Nina Moore

• 5 Great Social Events – September garden party at the Stauffer’s, November Area Get together at Lucy Stern, Christmas party at the Kniss’s, Anniversary party with wine tasting and trio at the Kalar’s and Rotaract mixer at Mid Peninsula Bank

Charitable Contributions -- The club has been extremely generous – we generated over $100,000 for our charitable giving

• Presidents Club with our gentle fine master Hal Michelson, has wheedled $9,500 from our talkative membership
• Fundraiser  led by Iris Korol and Rachel Myer raised  $62,000  for charities at the Galaxy of Stars
• Endowment – Led by Vic Rosasco and counted by Todd Lewis topped $500,000 this year and will contribute $24,000 to our charitable fund
• Lunch Money  will contribute $3,000 more
• Other donations and grants of about $3,500

In addition we raised $21,700 for the Rotary Foundation which was a club record –  thanks to the leadership of Iris Korol and Bert Rose

So in total we generated about $125,000 or almost an average of $900 per member for our charitable fund —certainly strong evidence that we really did meet our objectives of giving something back to the community

Charitable Activities

Charitable Grants – Bill Johnson

• Carefully screened 73 grant proposals to come up with the 6 winning organizations
• Distributed $42,500

Community Hands On Events – Hersh Davis

• Painted the Red Cross and got a smile from Trish
• Working with Kiwanis to refurbish the Montessori school of East Palo Alto
• Contributed $4200 to the activities

Vocational Scholarships – Sally Tomlinson

• Recruited and screened many candidates
• Awarded 11 scholarships to some very deserving students
• Total award -- $14,500

Ambassadorial Scholarships – Nancy Peters

• Recruited and screened numerous candidates
• Recommended one qualified candidate for scholarship for District Review

Homeless – Ted Larson, Dan Quinn and Dennis McGinn

• Fed the homeless 11  times this year

Green Oaks Academy – Barb Mitchell and Paul Jene 

• Distributed 200 dictionaries to Green Oaks Academy
• Set up a special teacher’s fund to purchase books at Kepler’s
• Total contribution of $3,000

English in Action – Tom Gracon

• Several members tutored Stanford overseas students and wives in English

World Community Service – Walt Hays –

• Distributed $15,500

• Great projects – Mexico, Guatemala, Kenya, Haiti, Bulgaria, India
• Major project in Kenya delayed until next year

• Hands on in the Yucatan – Refurbishing and stocking Libraries in Merida

Youth – Mike Couch -- $7,000 for support of the various youth organizations and Camp RYLA

• Engineered the Interact and YCS merger – Mike Couch and Walt Hays
• Supported the Stanford Rotaract Club which is stronger than ever – Jack Woodson
• Sponsored Rotary/Rotaract mixer – Steve Heitel and Mid Peninsula Bank
• Vocational Shadowing
• Sent 6 students to Camp RYLA
• Boy Scouts – Sponsored a boy scout troop and a cub scout troop -- Dick Mansfield
• Girl Scouts – Gave $750 to help disadvantaged scouts attend camp programs Sharon Wagner

Board was extremely supportive and continued to guide the Club wisely and actively.

• Iris Korol – Ex President
• Rob Lancefield – President Elect
• Mike McMahon -- Treasurer
• Ruth Schneider -- Secretary
• Janet Wells – Recording Secretary
• Sherry Sager – Club Ops
• Ralph Adams – Club Service
• Cyrille Betant – Community Servicce
• Hersh Davis – Community Service – Hands On
• Trish Bubenik – International Service
• Mike Couch – Youth Service and President Elect - Elect

So, congratulations on a great year and thanks for all of you who worked so hard to make it a success.  It really does take the whole village to make this club run and we have a great group of villagers.