President Alex opened the meeting at 11 a.m. and one of our newer members, Connie Alvarez, led us in the pledge. Greg Bohart gave the Inspirational Message and Judy Lutticken was our Virtual Greeter. Joel Doss led us in the Welcome Song and did a great job as usual! Jeanne Hawkins set up the Zoom, Karen Stelman is the scribe and Bill Angus puts the Newsletter together. Maria, a travel writer from Germany, moved here in 2006 and was interested in attending a meeting to see what Rotary was all about!
Jan Goldsmith was our Rotarian of the Month for providing our club with some very dynamic speakers this quarter. So glad you've joined our club and added so much information about what is going on with our city.
Alan Turner is our Membership Chair and gave us an update on where we stand. We lost 6 members due to various reasons but added 4 new ones. Happy to say Joels' Mom is one of them!
We all sang Happy Birthday to the May birthday "babies" and look forward to having a cake again one of these days. There were lots of Happy Bucks and announcements. Don Glover announced that our club made up 43% of the tickets that were set aside for the District Rotarians to go to a Padres game. Nice going club members!
Arilla was our fine master today in Johns' absence. There were no fines as so many people donated to make announcements. Our meeting raised a total of $606!! Sandie Dewane donated $49 for her anniversary and Arilla gave $100, $54 of that went to celebrate her anniversary!
Cheryl Roop gave her Who Am I today. She was born into a military family with both her mother and father serving in 2 separate branches. She was very active in Navy Relief and numerous other volunteer activities. She taught at the Ed Brown Center in 1998 and volunteered at the St. Bartholomew's Thrift Shop until 2019 when they had to close due to the virus. She's been very dedicated to our club, attending almost every meeting on Zoom since we began doing it this way. Welcome to the club and wear your new Gold Badge proudly!
Dave Brooks updated us on The Spirit of the 4th and announced that we would be having a beautiful fireworks show for sure. Dave introduced Lynn Ewing who is on the committee and in charge of them. Details to follow. Sadly, there will be no parade again this year but we look forward to it next year!
Our speaker today was introduced by Joe Leventhal. He ran against her for the SD Council seat but narrowly lost in a close race. They both showed great admiration and respect for each other. Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert gave us an in depth report on the decisions being made by the Council.
They voted to keep outdoor dining on track for one more year as it has been a great success. Some restaurants
took a little too much liberty in their expansion so they will have to do some corrections to adhere to the new rules. Their #1 priority is safety and funding for our fire fighters, gun violence laws (i.e. restraining laws) and infrastructure. They have advocated $1 billion dollars for the San Vincente Dam renovation, increasing solar panels in parking lots and working to support woman fire fighters for diversity and inclusion. They are also working on expanding Mass Transit for our city.
Resa Coopat stood in for Terry Heck and presented a "virtual" book to our speaker.
Jim Hyldahl offered membership to our speaker and she said she may just take him up on that offer!
Mike Fuqua proudly announced that our club raised $14,918 to be sent to India to help defer costs for the care of their citizens touched by this terrible pandemic. Great job everyone!
Our next meeting is June 3rd at 11 a.m. Our speaker will be Secretary of State Shirley Weber. Jan Goldsmith has done it again! Another great speaker to look forward to! We will also welcome our District Governor who will pay us a visit as well.
Respectfully submitted,
Karen Stelman, Scribe
