Bulletins - 2006 -01/10/2007
This
Week's Bulletin Was Written
By Jenny K. Goodman, Esq.
President Jensen called the meeting to order as the full house rushed to get to their seats. After the invocation (which I missed, so sorry), Linda Jalving lead the club in the salute to the flag. Rosalie Kramm, Linda and Jim Mulvany conducted the group in an unusually on-key rendition of Edelweiss in honor of our guest speaker, Dr. Edelman.
Rosalie Kramm fined several members for upcoming anniversaries, er, birthdays and other notable dates. A large pot was collected for the First Field Goal contest in this week's upcoming Charger's play-off game.
Our guests and visiting Rotarians were welcomed as always by Pete McGuire. We had a great club turn-out this week so there were not many empty seats.
This month's award went to Amanda Guzman. Amanda maintains a 4.03 grade point average while being very active in her school. She was a Rotary exchange student and is also very active in Interact. She definitely plans on being a part of Rotaract and Rotary in the future. Amanda is a perfect example of the types of leaders the club hopes to recognize with their student award program. Way to go, Amanda.
Here is a Report from the International Committee:
Our Ensenda adventure began in the parking lot at 8th and B Street at 4:00 pm on Friday, 5 January. After loading up the Rotary District 5340 van with Lucy Killea, Alex Kwoka, Gidget Rangel and her friend Billie, Kim Vellekamp and her co-worker Gayland, and Gary McElroy, our designated driver and husband of Alex, Bob, tried to start the engine. All that was heard was click, click, click! Alex very calmly called AAA and we waited for the tow truck to arrive and give us a jump-start. After waiting and waiting and more waiting, the tow truck finally arrived, got us started and then told us the battery might not hold a charge. So we waited a while longer for the driver to bring and install a new battery. After picking up Pat Cowett and Mary Engles along the way, we were finally on the road to Ensenada!
We arrived too late to help pack bags that night for distribution to needy individuals on Saturday to coincide with the Feast of the Three Kings. However, we did meet up with Rotarians and guests from four other Southern California Rotary Clubs at the Hotel Coral who were participating in this project organized by the host club, Ensenada Centenaria Rotary Club. The Ensenada Centenaria Rotary Club has a total of 38 members. Another 110 Rotarians and guests from Montebello, Catalina Island, Vista, Club 33 and our club made the trip south to help distribute the 800 bags of staples, 800 blankets and assorted toys on Saturday.
We met in the hotel lobby at 7:30 am the next morning. Pat and Mary had already taken an early morning tour of the hotel grounds and attached yacht marina on a very cold, windy morning. As everyone else in Ensenada was asleep at the time, the Federales who closely observed them as they walked near yacht marina probably took them to be “boat-jackers”. Carlos Perez, the president of the Ensenada club, and one of his daughters arrived and led us to the San Nicholas Hotel, where we had breakfast. Then it was off to the warehouse to meet the other members of the Ensenada club and depart with them to the preselected distribution points in and around Ensenada. Gidget, Billie and Gayland accompanied Ensenada Rotarian Luis Guevara to the distant San Antonio Necua Indian Village and were the last of our group to return to Ensenada and the fiesta already underway at the beautiful home of Rotarian Dr Eloy Perez. They didn’t seem to mind being late as they stopped at a winery on their way back, did some tasting and bought a few bottles of their very best wine. Pat, Mary, members and guests of Club 33 and Ensenada Rotarian Wilfredo Salazar went to a grammar school about 10 minutes away from the warehouse location. The principal of the school had organized the recipients into 3 lines:(1) grandmother types who were given very warm blankets, (2) moms and kids who had their choice of either a sack of foodstuffs or a blanket, and (3) moms with kids or grandmothers/parents with kids who got soccer balls, or stuffed animals, or books or crayons or dolls and blankets and clothing. They had time to chat with many of them and found the faces of the children to be especially memorable. The rest of our group followed Ensenada Rotarians Dr. Salvador Cabazos and Rafael Vazquez in our van to Ojos Negros and distributed our bags, blankets and toys to the mothers and children of the village. Lucy especially enjoyed handing the bags and blankets to the women, and Alex took charge of handing out toys to the children. Before returning to town, we stopped at a dairy farm owned by Rotarian Vazquez and were each given a large block of cheese made from the cow’s milk.
When most of the groups had returned to Ensenada and the home of Dr. Perez, the fiesta celebrating the Feast of the Three Kings began. Tequila, beer, wine and delicious Mexican food were served and enjoyed by all of the Rotarians and guests. President Carlos thanked all those present and gave each participating club a framed certificate of appreciation. For our part, we thanked Carlos for allowing us to join in more or less at the last minute, presented his club with our club’s check for $750 and asked to be invited back next year for this very rewarding project and cross-cultural experience.
We departed for San Diego around 4:30 pm and arrived in Tijuana just after dark. To add to our adventure, we ended up somewhere near the Otay Mesa border crossing after being diverted by the police from the San Ysidro border crossing. The signage was very confusing, so we stopped at a Burger King to ask for directions. Lucy, who is very fluent in Spanish, asked a family that was walking into the Burger King to point us the way to the border. This very obliging family piled back into their car and asked us to follow them. After many, many turns and 15 minutes of driving, they put us at the end of the very long line of cars waiting to cross into the US. Kim and Lucy won the pool on how long it would take us to make the crossing - 1 hour and 40 minutes!
We all thank Bob for his expert driving that got us safely to and from Ensenda and over the narrow, winding road to Ojos Negros.
This week's speaker was Dr. Gerald Edelman from the Neuroscience Institute. Dr. Edelman is a Nobel Prize winner and a very interesting speaker (with a good sense of humor). Dr. Edelman talked about variouis studies of the brain, which he considers to be the "final frontier" of science. Nancy Vaughan is trying to broker a partnership between Dr. Edelman and Steven Speilberg for a movie of that name. Dr. Edelman showed us studies that demonstrate the brain's activity even when we are asleep. The studies focusing on consciousness and brain power include one in which a monkey operates a prosthetic device merely by brain waves. Very fascinating. Dr. Edelman discussed the relationship between the brain and music. We are the only species with language which is the primary distinguishing factor between us and say, for example, the fruit fly. In fact, one study Dr. Edelman talked about showed how a scientist at the Institute developed a tiny electrode that could monitor the brain activity of a fruit fly and proved that even fruit flies sleep. Overall a very informative speaker and we hope to have him back in the future. By the way, check out his daughter's latest blue grass musical release!
|
