Success Through Teamwork 10/10/12
Posted by Tony Ciancimino
on Oct 11, 2012
Each week President Jim will offer his thoughts to Tony Ciancimino who in turn will share them with his fellow Rotarians and friends of the Club.
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Dear Rotarians and friends,
With several members either traveling or otherwise committed, as described by President Jim, this week's group was small but mighty. Even with reduced numbers the energy was high, which was needed for this week's special program.
Jim started with announcements and noted with sadness that Tore Knos was not with us this week due to the passing of his mother-in-law. Let's all gather next week to sign a remembrance for Dianne Pollock of Gale LaBarre. Jim also mentioned that Jon Lamirault had checked in, is doing well in the executive training at Target. All fingers are crossed in hopes that Jon's request to be reassigned from Glendale to Culver City comes through.
Speaking of Culver City, thanks to the recommendation of our good friend Linda Black, we had a special guest with us this week, Peter Smyth. Peter originally hails from Australia, but now calls MDR his home. He is in real estate and mortgage investments. A great guy, we were pleased to have Peter with us and anticipate seeing him at the 10/18 cultural dinner.
Calling Judith Wilson to the podium President Jim honored her as Rotarian of the month for her hard work on the District Picnic. Big time congratulations Judith!
Gwen attended last week's meeting of the Rotary Community Alliance. She heard from the Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists of their desperate need for books. The major problem is that have little or no room to store books, if they had them. The answer, they are looking for the tablet computers sold by Barnes and Noble called Nook. This would allow the students to download a wide variety of books. The light bulb over Gwen's head exploded with a new program concept, challenge each club in the District (66 clubs) to each donate $100 for the cost of one Nook. Almost immediately President Jim shot off an email to Governor Lew to challenge other clubs in the District. New programs through creative thinking!
Gwen went on to report that we got the accounting on the Teacher Mini Grant support from the Los Angeles Commercial Real Estate Association (LACRA.) Our generous partners donated $7,000 on top of the mountain of school supplies they gave us. So generous! They have our sincere thanks.
Oct. 18th is our cultural dinner. Each member is reminded that they need to get either $20 or a twenty dollar bottle of wine to Anne Algaze. Please do this in advance of they dinner as their is prep required for that evening. If you have a favorite retailer or eating place PLEASE ask them to donate to our raffle/silent auction. We desperately need more contributions. If each member participates, we'll be over the top and this is a major part of our fund raising effort. Go the extra mile, again, please help out! Reminder to those helping to set up we'll start at 2:00 PM, Gwen will send around a sign up list for cleanup volunteers next week.
This was another week for the Bear Essentials auction in support of Polio Plus. Even with a reduced audience the bidding was hardy. Wouldn't you know it, Mr. Generosity, Howard Pollack out lasted the competition with an $80 bid. He even pulled "a Rob Bird" and bid against himself. $80 got Howard a variety of picnic related items to go along with a gift card to Playa Vista's PicNik.
This week's program was a little different. We broke down the attendees into guys versus the gals for "Name that TV Show." We played the theme songs for 30 different TV Shows and challenged the membership to name them. Many struggled with their random access memories, but one person swamped the competition and led the guys to an overwhelming victory. Who would have guessed, but sporting his new nick name it was our President Elect, TV Tom Carson! Way to go PE!
We heard from one of our road warriors, world traveler Don Culton. Don checked in from Ithaca NY where he did a make up and got a banner from their club. Travel safely don!
With no winner this week in the 50/50 card drawing the pot goes to $945 for next week.
Thanks to Gwen Vuchsas and Don Culton for this week's photos.
Save the Date
October 14 District Youth Conference
October 18 Carnival Fund Raiser
October 27 Westchester Halloween Fair
October 27 Paul Harris Celebration
December 2 Midnight Mission Food Service
Be well.
Yours in Rotary service,
Tony
With several members either traveling or otherwise committed, as described by President Jim, this week's group was small but mighty. Even with reduced numbers the energy was high, which was needed for this week's special program.
Jim started with announcements and noted with sadness that Tore Knos was not with us this week due to the passing of his mother-in-law. Let's all gather next week to sign a remembrance for Dianne Pollock of Gale LaBarre. Jim also mentioned that Jon Lamirault had checked in, is doing well in the executive training at Target. All fingers are crossed in hopes that Jon's request to be reassigned from Glendale to Culver City comes through.
Speaking of Culver City, thanks to the recommendation of our good friend Linda Black, we had a special guest with us this week, Peter Smyth. Peter originally hails from Australia, but now calls MDR his home. He is in real estate and mortgage investments. A great guy, we were pleased to have Peter with us and anticipate seeing him at the 10/18 cultural dinner.
Calling Judith Wilson to the podium President Jim honored her as Rotarian of the month for her hard work on the District Picnic. Big time congratulations Judith!
Gwen attended last week's meeting of the Rotary Community Alliance. She heard from the Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists of their desperate need for books. The major problem is that have little or no room to store books, if they had them. The answer, they are looking for the tablet computers sold by Barnes and Noble called Nook. This would allow the students to download a wide variety of books. The light bulb over Gwen's head exploded with a new program concept, challenge each club in the District (66 clubs) to each donate $100 for the cost of one Nook. Almost immediately President Jim shot off an email to Governor Lew to challenge other clubs in the District. New programs through creative thinking!
Gwen went on to report that we got the accounting on the Teacher Mini Grant support from the Los Angeles Commercial Real Estate Association (LACRA.) Our generous partners donated $7,000 on top of the mountain of school supplies they gave us. So generous! They have our sincere thanks.
Oct. 18th is our cultural dinner. Each member is reminded that they need to get either $20 or a twenty dollar bottle of wine to Anne Algaze. Please do this in advance of they dinner as their is prep required for that evening. If you have a favorite retailer or eating place PLEASE ask them to donate to our raffle/silent auction. We desperately need more contributions. If each member participates, we'll be over the top and this is a major part of our fund raising effort. Go the extra mile, again, please help out! Reminder to those helping to set up we'll start at 2:00 PM, Gwen will send around a sign up list for cleanup volunteers next week.
This was another week for the Bear Essentials auction in support of Polio Plus. Even with a reduced audience the bidding was hardy. Wouldn't you know it, Mr. Generosity, Howard Pollack out lasted the competition with an $80 bid. He even pulled "a Rob Bird" and bid against himself. $80 got Howard a variety of picnic related items to go along with a gift card to Playa Vista's PicNik.
This week's program was a little different. We broke down the attendees into guys versus the gals for "Name that TV Show." We played the theme songs for 30 different TV Shows and challenged the membership to name them. Many struggled with their random access memories, but one person swamped the competition and led the guys to an overwhelming victory. Who would have guessed, but sporting his new nick name it was our President Elect, TV Tom Carson! Way to go PE!
We heard from one of our road warriors, world traveler Don Culton. Don checked in from Ithaca NY where he did a make up and got a banner from their club. Travel safely don!With no winner this week in the 50/50 card drawing the pot goes to $945 for next week.
Thanks to Gwen Vuchsas and Don Culton for this week's photos.
Save the Date
October 14 District Youth Conference
October 18 Carnival Fund Raiser
October 27 Westchester Halloween Fair
October 27 Paul Harris Celebration
December 2 Midnight Mission Food Service
Be well.
Yours in Rotary service,
Tony