The invocation was delivered by KRISTINE BALLECER, who also gave a tribute and thank you to our troops, past and present. JERRY DALE delivered the flag salute, and BOB KITTREDGE announced the visiting Rotarians and guests. Among the guests was DOYLE DANIEL’S grand-daughter MOLLY, now in sixth grade. Other Introductions followed, including Bulletin Reporter RICK QUAN, Sargeant At Arms JIM CLARK, Raffle Ticket Seller PAUL DYER, Greeter TOM GRAVES.

JANET then asked our NFR veterans to stand and give a short recollection of their military service, which they did. They included CLIFF SPEIGHT, PAUL READ, SCOTT LOWE, ROGER ANDERSON, JIM CONNELLY, MURR BARRY, PAT BRADLEY, BOB CARTER, ROD GIBSON, JERRY DALE, JEFF DALE, BILL MCGLASSEN, CHARLIE WADHAMS, and BOB KITTRIDGE. This week’s editor’s apologies for anyone who served their country and was not mentioned here.

Among the most memorable was BILL MCGLASSEN’S account, when he related the feeling that he and every man on deck felt when, upon returning from Korea, the ship with 2500 men on deck, started a cheer that rippled like a wave from bow to stern as their ship crossed under the Golden Gate Bridge.

In the Weird News of the Day, STEVE VARVIS tells us that in New Jersey, police officers made an offer for non-violent offenders to turn themselves in for lighter sentences. They were surprised when over 500 people come in who had no outstanding warrants.

Another item in the Weird News category is the announcement of a bacon-flavored soft drink. The company introducing the new beverage hopes that the new product will do better than their previous effort, turkey and gravy soda, introduced last year. Our speaker today Lieutenant Colonel Clay Garrison said he’s tried the bacon-flavored beverage, and says “it’s like drinking a ham.”

There was no Joke of the Day this week.

Today we were called on to vote for New Directors. The Committee to Nominate New Directors met and proposed the following nominees: PAT BRADLEY, ED KACZMAREK, PAUL DYER, and ROSENDO PENA. All four nominees were duly voted in by the membership, and our new directors promised a “new direction” in wherever we were going. The membership welcomed them for their many years of future service.

Announcements:

In NFR Membership news, our Membership Committee reports that we are negative six for membership so far this year. On the positive side, our efforts in identifying new prospective members have yielded over 50 names so far, with not all members reporting in yet. Hopefully this will bear fruit soon. If you have not turned in your prospective member list, please do so as soon as possible.

In the Show & Tell portion of the meeting, TOM GRAVES showed us one of the 14 new defibrillators that that will be going with the two ambulances and the fire-truck to the City of Guasave as part of NFR’s goodwill donation to them. The defibrillators were donated by American Ambulance. TOM asked for volunteers to test the new defibrillators, but got no responses.

Volunteers are needed to help to transfer these assets to San Diego for the hand-off to volunteers from the Guasave Club, who will take them the rest of the way. Sign-ups for volunteers are ongoing and target dates for the trip are being worked out, probably for sometime in January or February 2011. Word has it that TOM knows a retired fireman who will accompany the group to provide training on the equipment. Not sure how long the Mexicans will get to keep him, though.

NICK SMALDINO and Kim Smaldino, DAVE REULAND, ROGER ANDERSON and JULIE KEITGES delivered 60 new dictionaries to students in three classrooms at Ginsburg Elementary. The kids were ecstatic to get the new dictionaries. More dictionary dispensing missions are planned for the future.

SHERIAN ECKENROD announced that the upcoming Christmas Party will be on December 16th - 6 p.m. at Torninos in lieu of the daytime meeting. This is a wonderful opportunity for fellowship, so you should attend or you need to do a make-up, as this will count as a regular meeting.

BERNADETTE HANSON tells us that the problem of who will pick up and drop off Fresno High School students for Job Shadowing has been solved. CHRIS WONG secured buses to do the job of transporting the students, thus relieving NFR members of having to go through fingerprinting and background checks, or whatever stopped the program last year. This returns this wonderful program to both NFR and Fresno High students. Job Shadowing will be on January 20^th, and BERNADETTE is taking sign-ups for volunteers. Students will be picking the professionals and professions they want to see up close, so sign up and represent your honored profession.

Community Service - Deliver turkeys - ERIC?

ERIC MAYU reports that he will need volunteers to deliver turkeys at Lowell Elementary and Cooper Middle School on Wednesday, 11/17, starting at 9:00am. Time commitment is only 20-30 minutes for each school, so it is an easy make-up. We will be purchasing 90 Turkey’s from Costco (West Shaw). The delivery time at Lowell Middle School will be 10:45am and the delivery time at Cooper Middle School 11:45am.

This week we will be at Cooper Middle for the Rotary Mentor Lunch- the time will be from 12:00pm-12:50pm. The food will be prepared by Diccico’s instead of the Chef I called upon because she does not meet the guidelines to prepare food in Fresno Unified. We will still have a remarkable time tomorrow with the kids and we look forward to seeing you out there!! Cooper is located at  2277 W. Bellaire Way Fresno, CA 93705

ERIC also mentioned the Christmas/Holiday Party at Lowell Elementary is coming up. More on the date will follow.

There was no Biz Talk this week:

There were no fines for missing pins or for missing badges this week. There were no travelers this week either, so no traveling bells.

As far as the Raffle/Wheel of (Mis)Fortune goes, BOB CARTER got the winning raffle ticket. The winning number on the Big Spin was 88, which meant “You pay $5.00” to the pot. As a consolation, BOB got a Gift Certificate from Mimi’s.

The Program:

After the Club Business and Announcements, PRESIDENT JANET POWELL stood up to introduce our speaker for today, Lieutenant Colonel Clay Garrison, currently Commander of the Maintenance Squadron for the 144th Fighter Wing, Fresno Air National Guard.

Lieutenant Colonel Clay Garrison is a native of Madera, California, and graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1988 with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. After assignments in South Carolina, South Korea, and serving as an instructor at the United States Air Force Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AF Base in Nevada, Lt. Col Garrison left active duty for the Air National Guard in July 2002, when he reported to his current assignment He is in charge of over 400 personnel responsible for the maintenance and sustainment of 22 assigned F-16 aircraft. He has also participated in two tours to Iraq, returning from his most recent tour in Jan 2009.

Lt. Col. Garrison started his talk by letting us know he would be careful to separate his opinion and military policy. He has done two deployments to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, at the beginning and at The Surge, President Bush’s 2007 increase in the number of American troops in order to provide security to Baghdad and Al Anbar Province.

The F-16 is a great combat aircraft and is well-suited to the assistance of ground troops. Nothing changes the dynamics of the battlefield like 2000 lbs of bombs. The role of the F-16 is to look for the unusual on the ground that the ground troops may not see. Each aircraft has 500lbs of explosives and a gun, to even the odds for ground troops. These include bombs go where you tell them to go with the help of laser guided weaponry.

The all-volunteer Air National Guard troops go in 120 day rotations. Employers have to understand this. At the 1^st rotation, employers were completely onboard. By the 3^rd rotation in 2006, it was not so easy to get employers OK on this. Now we are in 4^th rotation. It’s not just the pilots who get deployment, but every support element of the fighter wing, as well– when they travel, they take everything they need with them. It’s not unlike a professional sports team, whose mission is to win, and so they bring everything they need with them to function as a team. When the U.S. armed forces go into harms way, they go first rate.

Their purpose is to destroy enemy property and kill enemy personnel. They are very good at it, on purpose. When it comes to the technical proficiency of the pilots themselves, Lt. Col. Garrison says that when he talks to other servicemen that he meets for example in airports or hotel lobbies and they get the answer to the question “what is it that you do?”, he gets the response, “I wish I had done better in math and science in high school. “

Lt. Col. Garrison talked about The Surge in Iraq. Before The Surge, which began in January 2007, from an “environmental perspective,” Iraq was” a dangerous place to drive a Jeep”. Bad guys were getting paid $200 to fire a round at foreign troops (us), $700 for taking out a jeep and $1200 for a casualty. There were 145,000 of us there and 75% of the traffic was U.S. military vehicles on the road, 50% in town, and there was no traffic after curfew. Most flying is done at night, and the view from the air was of a dark landscape, because of the widespread black-outs.

Eighteen months is all it took to turn things around. By 12/2008 to 1/2009, The Surge had been in full effect for less than 20 months, and the landscape had completely changed. 70% of all traffic was now Iraqi commerce, and the daytime saw millions of people on the streets. The Surge brought lights to the city and the desert at night, where before all was blackness. Before The Surge, there were perhaps 140 IED (improvised explosive device) attacks per day. Afterwards, IED attacks were down to 10-15 per day.

Lt. Col. Garrison then offered his opinion on current state of affairs with U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan:

The draw down in Iraq is in progress. The less than 90,000 troops in Iraq now will go down to 50,000. Already the Air National Guard deployments to Iraq have ceased. The need for them in this theatre of operations is done.

In Afghanistan the present Air National Guard role is in surveillance and reconnaissance. Pilots and observer pairs are flying remote-controlled Predator Drones from their bases in California, Texas, North Dakota and Arizona. Only a few such are being flown daily now. The goal is to have 50 or more airborne by 2013.

What to expect next:

For Iraq, 45,000 U.S. troops will be training Iraqi military and security personnel. For the Air Force this will mean training missions for Iraq as they re-build their own air force. Special ops will be training to build core competencies in the Iraqis, which will take time. Iraq has the benefit of a highly-educated population, plus a high expectation among its people of what government should provide. They also have lots of water from the Tigris & Euphrates Rivers, and they have lots of oil to pay for re-establishing their country. And much of the infrastructure is already there–in Iraq, it was easy to disable and rehabilitate existing infrastructure, like concrete hangers and bunkers that had been originally built by Saddam Hussein’s forces.

As for Afghanistan, we’ve already been there for 7 years. No permanent facilities are being built in Afghanistan. Portable structures are everywhere, temporary housing military operations.

Afghanistan is a greater problem politically, because the expectations of the people are so dependent on tribal whims. They have bigger infrastructure problems, huge education or lack thereof, which leaves the population susceptible to influence by radical or fundamentalist religious elements. Corruption in the Afghan government is huge, probably the first of second most corrupt government in the world. The Afghanistan surge is on now, but success is up in the air.

After Lt. Col. Garrison’s program, PRESIDENT JANET presented a book to our speaker to be donated to Lowell School Library, then rang the bell to adjourn the meeting.

Your intrepid reporter ventured forth on Thursday morning to Tornino’s to check out what was happening at the fabled 11:30 Club. The 11:30 Club is going strong. TERRY HUNTSMAN is sorely missed. ROGER “Twinkletoes” ANDERSON made an appearance, apparently recovered from showing off his dancing prowess on Charter Night. ADG Stan Dorrance showed up, recovering from back surgery. The surgery didn’t prevent him from telling his usual off-color jokes. It was great to see BILL DUKE back at Rotary, with his designated driver, BILL McGLASSON. Other attendees included CHARLIE WADHAMS, NICK SMALDINO, JERRY DALE (selling raffle tickets), STEVE BEZZERIDES, FRED BIGLIONE, GORDON KNOTT and PP Dick Powell. In other words, the Usual Suspects.

The Meeting

After DAVE McGLASSON invoked the blessings of the Almighty on our meeting, PRESIDENT JANET POWELL invited the gathering to remember RON DUSTIN’s mother, Patsy Sue Dustin, with a moment of silence. Patsy passed away on October 21^st. Keep RON and his family in your thoughts. STEVE BEZZERIDES led the flag salute, and SHANNON STINER introduced the visiting Rotarians and guests.

BOB CARTER gave an update on DON FOPPIANO’s condition following his mishap at the Copper River Country Club on Charter Night. DON is recovering nicely from a broken nose and eye socket. He was kept for observation a few days, in an effort to determine why he fainted. No news on that yet.

Invocation by SCOTT LOWE.

Pledge by STEVE BERGLUND.

A special prayer by Dave Reuland, who effectively conveyed the club’s sympathy for the passing of Betty Read, Paul Read’s wonderful wife of 59 years. Graveside service to be held Oct 29, 9am, Belmont Memorial Cemetery. Memorial Service at 11am at G.L. Johnson Chapel – Peoples Church. Bereavement luncheon to follow.

Visitors were introduced by KATIE SIEMENS and included at least 8 visiting Rotarians (Hmmm… a great way to find new members?) and our friends from Rotary Storyland/Playland: Barry Faulk, Shannon Harris, and Ryenn Brown.

Weird News and Joke of the Day: These were delayed until the Assembly Meeting was commenced…

Birthday Table was inhabited by CHIP PUTNAM, PAUL READ, and ED KACZMAREK. BOB CARTER and NICK SMALDINO were partying at other tables so they paid dearly. STEVE McCLEAN, who also starred in “The Great Escape”, narrowly escaped a fine for being in “proximity”.

JAZZ Report: CHIP PUTNAM gave tutored us in math with the following: Jazz total income - $63,196. Expense - $16,405. Net income - $46,790. By all measures, a huge success, one of the biggest totals in years! Also, that means that $23,395 went to Storyland (and of course the same amount to Rotary account). Best Donation Gatherers were: 1) JIM CLARK, 2) GENEVIE PUENTE, 3) MARK SMITH – MARK also was instrumental in setting up the new beverage area. Most Tickets Sold: BOB KITTREDGE at 28. Howdedodat? Barry Faulk was asked what he would do with the money, and essentially his answer was “more”!

LARRY GRANADOS advertised Charter Night, a night of gaiety at Copper River starting at 6pm with cocktails.

SHERIAN ECKENROD gave us early notice of the Christmas Celebration to be held at Tornino’s on Thursday December 16. She noted that there will be no Rotary meeting that day so that all energies can be translated into evening fa-la-la. You will either need to make up that week – or just come to the party for credit!

ERIC MAYU gave us the Cooper MS Report: This past Tuesday was fun and we had 10 Rotarians (TOM COLEMAN, PAUL GIBSON, DON HENDERSON, BOB KITTREDGE, STEVE BEZZERIDES, JOHN FROST, SHERIAN ECKENROD, DOYLE DANIEL, ED KACZMAREK, and ME) versus 22 (Johnathan, Jacob, Michael, Daniel, Justin, Misheanna, Joshua, Arturo, Lorenzo, Isaac, Bridget, Jackie, Katelynn, Breanna, Taylor, Tywain, Felecia, Esmeralda, Cheyenne, Tanisha, Maggie, and Everardo) special junior high kids at Cooper Middle School. If you missed and want to attend in the near future, the sessions are the 3rd Tuesday of every month from 12:00p-12:50p. Next month: a fine dining experience right there on campus, to teach the Rotarians, er, students, etiquette!

JIM CONNELY thanked the club for supporting a wonderful organization - Poverello House.

TOM GRAVES stole the show again with more great news from American Ambulance. They are donating 12 Auto External Defibrillators (say that 12 times fast) to be disseminated among locations in Mexico and at the Rotary podium.

Raffle was won (or lost) by TED MARSELLA. He paid the kitty $5 and received a Cheesecake Factory gift card in return. Good trade!

The Program: Assembly Meeting

JOHN LEONARDO kicked us off with a lively discussion about NFR Membership. Seems we have declined from a high of 135 members in the 1990’s to now 78 members. A new stimulus plan was enacted to encourage new membership: invite a friend to a free Rotary lunch! Coupons available. Discussion ensued about “why don’t we invite more”; “why are we losing members”; “why is it hard for people to join Rotary”; “how to get younger members”. Etc. It is recognized that culture has changed through time, but if we all were to just invite from our network, and if each of us secured one new member – wow, what a result! SCOTT SHEWAN shared some of the great news about Rotary’s dominance over polio around the world. This is a great story to share with prospective members. Polio was endemic in 100+ countries, now is in only 4. The entire Western Hemisphere is polio-free. Two-billion children have been immunized, in large part thanks to Rotary! Now that is something to be proud of.

Since this is Politics Month, I thought I would start with a BANG.

 We had the Real Thing at the podium this week. PREZ. JANET struck the bell, calling us to order.

Past Acting Prez. STEVE VARVIS had to raise his voice in Prayer. Bad, bad, mike. PATTI O’ held her own, without mike, and lead us in the Pledge. ZACH STEVENS (aka Not Digit), figure that out Sontype, introduced the visiting Rotarians and Guests. SHERIAN ECKENROD, remember her, is back from Montana. DON HENDERSON must be too envious, because he was nowhere to be seen. JASON WEBER walked around with the bad, bad mike. JERRY DALE pushed tickets, one of which ended up in FRED BIGLIONE’s grasp. The wheel landed on 5 and 7. Because LA PREZ. forgot the deck of cards for FRED to pull from, he was handed a gift certificate and JANET rang the bell.

SEAN BORCHARDT stood up and introduced his guest, Luke, the force be with you, SEAN’s son. Luke had pumpkins on the brain because he and Dad visited a Pumpkin Patch together. Awesome!

JERRY DALE was supposed to ring the bell for his daughter Courtney’s, induction into the Central Valleys ASA Hall Of Fame for softball. BERNADETTE HANSEN stood up and covered for JERRY. “If it was not for JERRY I would not have become sooooo interested in softball”. Courtney returned to her alma mater for her collegiate coaching debut. Courtney Dale is now UCLA’s volunteer assistant coach. If any of this is a hic-up, call me on it JERRY.

There were several world travelers re-acclimating to Fresno and NFR. Besides SHERIAN, SHANNON STINER, Cubette Reporter, returned earlier in the day from Hawaii and left her badge exactly where she would find it when she returned. ChaChing. PAT BRADLEY and DEBORAH Mc visited Switzerland but Ms. Mc extended her trip to Italy and Germany, which are as close to Switzerland as Madera is to Fresno. KEVIN O’ hopped to Montreal and Quebec. I think he brought back a bell. Hic-up. By the way both Mr. O’ and Ms. Mc are also Reporters for the formidable and prestigious publication, The Bully. Don’t you want to join ‘The Group’?

ROD GIBSON, also a member of ‘The Group’, imparted some weird news to us. Similar to the news this week here in the valley except, that the 77 cats were kept in a car. Probably because it was in Vermont and they needed better shelter. R. M. and B. R. may be hit with animal cruelty charges. AND. Times Square, which is not square or really a square except for autos to barely miss herds of people, has some street people vying for attention. How you could see them anyway I don’t know. The Naked Cowboy is sewing a Naked Cowgirl for franchise rights to the social activity, or whatever it could be called, of displaying their person. Find out all about it on, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Cowboy

Again there was no joke of the day, soooo. This is for you, SCOTT LOWE.

Oh I forgot the PIN FINES. STEVE VARVIS and PLATO STERIOS were caught with their Pin off. ChaChing.

TOM GRAVES introduced Lee Brand, the City Council member from District 6, Northeast Fresno. I am sorry but I refuse to try and recap his presentation. Google Lee and you will find out his impact and determination to undo stupidity or at least rain it in. Hopefully some lightening will occur. Something has to wake up Fresno politics and beyond. We need a change based on reality, ethics and morals. We are going in the wrong direction. That is my take on his presentation.

The following is an excerpt from ‘The Patriot Post’ of October 11th. It might be worth discussing with George Radanovich this month.

“If the Republicans regain the House, the entire Obama redistributive agenda will stall. That stasis will give far more certainly to the business cycle — and probably provide the necessary psychological lift for businesses to start hiring and buying. In a weird way, by losing the Congress, Obama may well see the economy rebound — a turnabout for which he’ll take credit, despite the failure of his earlier massive borrowing schemes that will seem like ancient history by 2012. Without Democratic congressional majorities, the president will also have to agree to vast budget cuts, as Republicans try to stave off fiscal insolvency. Again, the president can let the Republican Congress take the hit for the unpopular pruning of entitlements, even as he points to a more encouraging balance sheet. In a Zen sort of way, Obama will allow Republicans to restore financial sanity to his administration, even as he blasts them for cutting programs and hurting the needy. … [I]f Republicans take over Congress, they — not Obama — can be blamed for the failure to enact the liberal dream. Obama can nostalgically soar with hope-and-change platitudes about his aborted left-wing vision, with the assurance that there is absolutely no chance he will offend the majority of Americans by seeing any of it passed.” –historian Victor Davis Hanson

Upcoming Events:

August 28^th; Storyland and Jazz.

October 22^nd; Charter Night at Copper River.

Next Week:

July 22^nd; The program will be on the Wheelchair Foundation. Bob Bitter, Madera Sunrise, will talk about Rotary wheelchairs taken to Costa Rica.

July 29^th; Doyle Daniel – new tax laws- round table discussion by NFR CPAs.

Pins on or shell out:

RALPH BOYAJIAN rang the bell for not having a Rotary pin on. Beware and carry it at all times. You never know who will call you on ‘no pin we win.’ Ring the bell.

Vocational Service:

CHRIS WONG is looking for volunteers to talk about their craft or profession and give the Club a personal portrait of who you are. More better than a written history with attached picture. Sign up and let’s have a go at it.

Pancake Report:

SCOTT LOWE is looking for a hose and red tubs that have gone missing. Ken Takaguichi was sitting at my table but not introduced. LOU SMALDINO stated that 225 runners partook in the runs. MARK BRAGE, FRED BIGLIONE, THE DALES, RODGER JENSEN and BILL DUKE sold all their tickets to the breakfast. They were given chocolate bars by JOHN KRIKORIAN. Financial report is to come.

Visitors:

Half the Fig Garden club made up with us. Judy Case honored our table by walking around the table to introduce herself to each of us. Maybe we could pick that idea up when we do make-ups.

Oddities:

“A person who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.”

PAUL GIBSON had his eyebrows threaded. If you are curious, watch this by opening hyperlink www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIeHYNt-rl4

Traveler:

NICHOLAS SMALDINO, who did introduce Kim this week, along with step son Andrew and girl friend Megan, brought back a small bell from Hawaii. This smaller bell can be used in place of the 1.25 lb brass bell as the’ traveling bell.’ Andrew and Megan were put to work selling the raffle tickets.

Raffle:

JOE MASTRO won some kudos with his daughter’s father-in-law. Number 855555529 happen to be in the F-I-L’s hand. The twirl of the wheel gave him eight dollars; his age minus fifty. What happens when a woman’s twirl lands on that space? She will always owe money; twenty nine minus fifty.

B-Day table:

“I’m not 50. I’m 49.95.”

Speaking of twenty nine, KATIE SIEMENS remembers her sixth grade slumber party as the best soooooo far. ZACH STEVENS harkens back to the party with a refrigerator full of imported beer. Where that beer came from I have no idea. GENEVIE PUENTE fondly remembers her surprise 40 party. JASON WEBER is still in Happy Ville over this year’s Big Party.

Jokes:

“I finally remembered the punch line! But now I forgot the joke.”

ROD GIBSON stated that the Brits have done it again. “Scientists claim to have answered the question that has confounded philosophers for centuries: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

It was, they say, indisputably the chicken.

A team from Warwick and Sheffield universities examined the formation of a chicken’s egg in microscopic detail and discovered that the shell was made from a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries.

Called ovocledidin-17, the protein acts as a catalyst to speed up the development of the shell.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Science+answers+Which+came+first+chicken/3286031/story.html#ixzz0txGcFuBc

CLIFF SPEIGHT told a ‘man joke’ well.

“Diagnostic: Someone who doesn’t know whether there are two gods.”

The Program:

“I started early teaching my kids the value of a dollar. From then on, they demanded their allowances in gold.”

There is no way I can even approach the job of reiterating the content or even the jest of Dr. Shahrokhi’s presentation. He was kind enough to send me the power-point presentation. See below. We need him to come back for a follow up, with a follow up, with another follow up. MURRAY, you done good. All that were not there, you messed up bad.

“An unemployed jester is nobody’s fool.”

The inserted quotes are not the product of this reporter. He knows not from whom they were imparted. So enjoy them or take the time to do the research.

Upcoming Events Storyland & Jazz; August 28^th. It is now time to sell those tickets!!!

Next Week: Oct. 15 speaker will be Professor Shahrokhi, talking about the Euro with the implications of the International business outlook.

October 22^nd will be a special program on the Wheelchair Foundation. Bob Bitter, Madera Sunrise, will talk about Rotary wheelchairs taken to Costa Rica.

Out of State Traveler, Paul Dyer is not letting any grass grow under his feet. He has been making up all of his meetings, while on a Leave of Absence. He writes that life is great in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He got outfitted for fly fishing and will be heading off to the Pecos River. He volunteered at the Rotary “Pancakes on the Plaza”. They made $25,000 and expect $40,000 next year. (Hopefully, PAUL, will bring back some of their secrets). He said there are a lot of hungry tourists and had a perfect location.

Also on LOA is Sherian Eckenrod. She and Gerry arrived in Montana on May31. They have had visitors including Ron Dustin and Past President Brian Mc Cully and his wife Marty. They have traveled to Glacier National Park and Logan Pass, where they had ten foot banks of snow! Life is full of activities including remodeling and expanding their patio, playing poker, shuffle board, craft fairs, festivals, and entertaining friends. Sherian continues to keep her 100% attendance by making up and attending local meetings. Sherian says “Come see us in Montana!”

Meet Rotarian PAUL READ

PAUL was born in Denver Colorado, served in the Army Air Corps during WWII. He graduated from University of California at Berkley with a degree in accounting. He then accepted a position with a new company W. M. Lyles, in Avenal, CA where the first office was in Lyle’s garage. Paul met and married the love of his life, Betty. They have three grown children. Paul retired from the Lyles Diversified Corporation after 49 years. PAUL has faithfully served Rotary 54 years and has 54 years of perfect attendance. He has been President of the Avenal Rotary Club as well as North Fresno. PAUL states his best asset is the friends in Rotary and at Peoples Church. He says the craziest job he ever had was getting paid while he slept as an irrigator. His personal heroes are Betty Read, Elizabeth Lyles, and Ed Baloian. PAUL says the best advice he ever got was “use your head to save your heel”.

Meet Newer Rotarian EVE LIU

EVE grew up in Southwest China in a city of Chengdu in the Sichuan Province. Chengdu is a high density and urbanized environment. She attended Jiatong University, School of Architecture. After 5 years of study she earned a Bachelor Degree in Architecture. Eve worked for seven years and was awarded the John Parkinson Scholarship to attend the Masters Program at USC. She is employed at Integrated Designs by SOMAN, Inc. working on school projects and a 700 acre mixed-use commercial project with the Motor Speedway and Dragstrip in Tulare. EVE is the Chief Designer of the company, mainly working on building design, site plans, and overseeing 3D renderings of the projects. The thing she admires most in the world is culture (including Art, music, architecture, and much more). A friend recommend that she join Rotary to meet people and serve the community. She is doing both very well!

Have you seen it??? Does anyone know where the Banner for the Endowment Fund is located? It has been missing for a number of months and we need your help. Please advise Janet Powell, if you know where it is. Thanks!

Rotary Pins: It’s gonna cost you. Wear your Rotary pin to meeting, JANET is checking. Not to get caught, last Thursday, PAUL READ and DICK ELLSWORTH were seen pinning each other in the foyer.

Club Service reports that the Membership Committee is gearing up and will be giving each of us an idea of who/what we are looking for, as far as good Rotarians. We need the names of prospects so they can be contacted by the Committee. Remember, if you bring a potential member to the Club, NFR will pay for their lunch.

Vocational Service is looking for volunteers to talk about their craft or profession. This is your time to advertise and not get fined. They are also looking for a site for a field trip. Does your company have something interesting that the Club would like to see? (Possibly a tour of Honorary Rotarian Ed Baloian’s new facility). Contact Chris Wong or Shannon Stiner.

Pancake Report: What a great event, with lots of happy faces and bustling Rotarians. This has to be one of the best things our Club does. Hats off to the Event Coordinator Scott Lowe. It is still too early to see what the profit was, but we served 1140 breakfasts. Word on the street is that we even ran out of batter. The Fun Run was the most successful to date with 225 runners. Good job to Lou Smaldino and his team. Please turn in your tickets and money to Bernadette Hansen on Thursday! There are 21 who have not returned their tickets. Remember if they are not returned, you will be charged.

Meeting of July 8^th: Our speaker was Daniel Doyle (that is not a typo) who is President and CEO of Central Valley Community Bank, formerly Clovis Community Bank. The topic was the recent financial meltdown. Dan was Chairman of the California Bankers Assn. during the crisis and spent considerable time in Washington DC meeting with our nation’s leaders. He advises that the recession lasted 21 months and is now over. He states most want to know the cause of the recession and he believes it was the housing crisis, leveraging and risk taking. Many people believed that the house prices would increase forever. The blame is spread between Congress and National Policies, poor lending and underwriting practices, mortgage brokers, investors, and borrowers. In 1994 the spike in home ownership coincided with the spike in home values.

Dan advises that banks are beginning to make money now that most foreclosure and bad loans have been dealt with. He believes the bottom has been hit but will bounce around for a while. The key is the unemployment number.

This was a very interesting meeting. If you weren’t there, you missed a good one!

Dave Reuland, reporter

It was rather refreshing- we got to dance before lunch. JANET introduced half the Madera Sunrise Rotary Club, she had invited to the affair.

SCOTT LOWE gave an up-date on the Pancake Breakfast- sell tickets was all I heard!

The silverware (plastic stuff) was wrapped by KATIE SIEMENS and DEB MCHENRY and others. 2400 pieces, Whew that’s over! The top ticket sellers were JOHN LEONARDO, NICK SMALDINO and BERNADETTE HANSEN. And the leader is ERIC MAYU; he got The 500 Grand Bar for his efforts. Good Job.

MARK SMITH, JOE MASTRO and JOHN LEONARDO were introduced as The Chair Persons of Membership. They are also in charge of the wine bar and auction area for wine at Storyland and Jazz. Drink up guys! JANET’S theme for this year is FUN.

Hopefully the Joke of The Day will pick up some steam and we’ll get into the swing of things. Time will tell. Hey! It wasn’t that bad. Maybe it was the joke- couldn’t have been the teller!

JOHN KRIKORIAN was pinned as President –Elect. You really looked excited JOHN. I’m glad.

President JANET set the expectation for her Traveling “Bell”. This should be fun if everyone gets into the spirit.

Lysle Zitec won the honor of the First Drawing and the card he drew made him a winner/loser! Cost him $8.00 to get out the door. He Won! – No he lost? Which is it?

After her trip to Montreal, after losing money and auto accident, etc the trip was wonderful. Had a great time.

JANET stated her goal for the 2010-2011 year and that was to increase membership by 17 or was it 15 people. Stay tuned. Also to establish transition systems to help to transition from one administration to the next so projects will continue.

JANET introduced the membership committee- MARK SMITH, JOE MASTRO and JOHN LEONARDO announced a matching Paul Harris grant of $100 for every member brought in, the expectation is all members are expected to actively pursue new members. Ok MARK, we got that!

Community Service Chair, ERIC MAYU and John Cross stressed involvement with Lowell Elementary, Cooper and Fresno High School. They are looking into introducing Pocce Ball as a way to engage kids with Rotarians.

International Services Co-Chairs GENEVIEVE PUENTE and TOM GRAVES are working on ways to tag onto other club activities to make their efforts go farther in Helping Programs in Armenia and Mexico for the Jaws of Life and ambulance with oxygen. So as to make it easier to transport patients who need care. Tom said the wheelchair program will be going to Costa Rico to deliver chairs in March of 2011.

CHRIS WONG and SHANNON STEINER talked about what they are doing with area schools for mentoring- the 4 way test essays- leadership and vocational services looking for opportunities to promote understanding and further ethical standards with our youth.

Good Meeting JANET.

11:30 Club

A great turnout for the 11:30 Club. By 12:00 noon, groups in excess of 30 individuals were enjoying good libation and conversation. No big world problems were probably solved, but a large group of Rotarians got to know each other a little better.

The Meeting

Upon entering the meeting room it was obvious that this meeting was going to be different. The majority of the tables were arranged in a large rectangular with a “passageway opening” located on the north line of the rectangular. Two additional tables were located in the center of the rectangular opening, facing each other a few feet apart.

Approximately 60 NF Rotarians, Visiting Rotarians, and Guests of Rotarians were in attendance.

Immediate Past President Steve Varvis rang the bell promptly at 12:30 to open the weekly meeting of the North Fresno Rotary Club. PP Steve welcomed all to the meeting, the final meeting of the presidential year for President Lou Smaldino. The applause and hoots were almost deafening. Ed Kaczmarek offered an appropriate invocation and Jim Snell did a good job of leading the group in the salute to our nations flag. The five Visiting Rotarians and the two guests of Rotarians, and Yolanda Smaldino, the Honored Guest (President Lou’s wife) were introduced.

PP Steve announced that this was the “Demotion Meeting” for President Lou Smaldino and that any of Visiting Rotarians could remain through the entire meeting or were welcome to leave after lunch. PP Steve invited President Lou come to the podium and presented him with the multi-pointed English-style hat the President Lou had previously obtained at the Rotary International Conference in Birmingham England the prior year. It is amazing how dignified and somewhat royal that President Lou looked while wearing the English-Style multi-pointed hat.

Traveling Rotarians

Several NF Rotarians admitted to PP Steve that they had recently traveled. Roger Anderson and his wife Phyllis recently returned from a trip to Turkey. Roger presented President Lou with an attractive, very spiffy multi colored embroidered Turkish style hat

Bernadette Hansen and her husband Ken had recently returned from an annual trip to Oklahoma City. They were there for the ten-day National Women’s Softball Tournament. Bernadette gave PP Steve a souvenir program of the Tournament and a souvenir scarf.

Ashraf Osman and members of his family recently attended the Pebble Beach U.S. Open and presented President Lou with a souvenir U.S. Open Pebble Beach Golf Towel.

Announcements

Scott Lowe reminded the members that the Fig Garden Village Pancake Breakfast fund-raiser was a little over two weeks away on Saturday July 10^th. The silverware (plastic-ware) wrapping would be next week on June 29^th.. The Villager Fig Garden newspaper recently had a nice article about the North Fresno Rotary Pancake Breakfast.

Chip Putnam reminded the members that Storyland & Jazz is coming fast and will be on Saturday August 28^th . Sell those tickets!!!

Steve Varvis reminded all that the NF Rotary Demotion Party would be tomorrow night (Friday June 25^th ) beginning at 6:00 PM. Due to cancellations, two spaces remain.

Trial for President Lou Smaldino

PP Steve said that many have questioned whether President Lou is worthy of membership in the NF Rotary Past Presidents Club. The Club leaders (who remained nameless) decided that a “Trial” for President Lou would be necessary to determine his worthiness.

Steve McClean was appointed as the acting Judge, Eric Mayu appointed as the Prosecuting Attorney and Steve Varvis as the Defense Attorney. The remainder of the Club membership was the jury.

President Lou was required to put-on a Dodgers Shirt, wear the multi-pointed Birmingham England hat, very stylish “rock-star” sunglasses and sit with Steve Varvis, his Defense Attorney, at the northerly table in the center of the large table rectangle. Prosecuting Attorney Eric Mayu sat at the south table in the center of the large table rectangle. Prior to the following “Trial” proceedings it was explained that the “Four Way Test’ would not be in effect. All present were sworn not to tell the truth.

President Lou was criticized for wearing a stupid hat in public, wearing a Dodgers shirt, and impersonating a President and for giving away cheap wine as raffle gifts. Attorney Eric Mayu called Bernadette Hansen, a 20 year Rotarian, as a prosecuting witness and ask Bernadette if she was given “meeting credits” by President Lou in exchange for booking his private travel. Under more questing by Eric, Bernadette said that she was the Chairwoman of Vocational Services, but didn’t know what Vocational Service was. Judge McClean reminded Eric that attempting to intimidate a witness was not allowed and President Lou was being tried, not Bernadette.

Other witnesses called by Attorney Eric Mayu were: Steve Bezzerides, and Bob Kittredge. Bob Kittredge said that when he was seriously ill in the I.C.U. unit at the hospital he ask President Lou for a Medical Leave of Absence. President Lou denied the leave.

Others on the list of witnesses were Jim Clark, Genevie Puente and Ralph Boyajian, none of the three could be found and the possibility of the involvement of the Italian Mafia was raised.

Eric Mayu ask Doyle Daniels how the Club budget went this year, and he responded: What Budget?

Dick Ellsworth testified that when the Giants guest speaker spoke at North Fresno Rotary, President Lou said: “Go Dodgers”. At the end of the day Dick received an e-mail that said that the Giants might pull the Fresno Grizzlies franchise.

Ted Marsella testified that during his presidency President Lou collected a lot of gifts from travelers. Dave Reuland testified that when President Lou recently lost his name badge he told Dave to give him his Past Presidents Badge. Katie Siemens testified that our recent Australian Exchange Student gained 15 pounds while living with Lou & Yolanda Smaldino and although now back in Australia, she still hasn’t been able to loose all of the extra weight.

Scott Lowe also testified, but it was difficult to tell if he was on the side of the prosecution or the defense.

Defense Attorney Steve Varvis told Judge McClean that he didn’t need to call any witnesses because of the interesting interrogation actions of the Prosecuting Attorney Eric Mayu.

The jury voted “No” to all questions relating to President Lou’s worthiness to join the Past Presidents Club. Judge McClean thanked Steve Vaervis, Eric Mayu and Lou Smaldino for their participation.

Reading these words do not do this “Demotion Meeting” justice. You should have been there to experience it in person.

-Cliff Speight-