Bulletins - 2007 - 11/07/2007
This
Week's Bulletin Was Written
By Leah Swearingen
President Mike, appearing particularly sartorial, opened the meeting at 7:30. John Adams provided an inspirational invocation, quoting Tim Russert.
Mary led us in an acceptable rendition of “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” – which is only the 20th time we’ve sung that song in the past four weeks.
Students from the Monarch School were on hand, selling their unique art cards and handmade jewelry.
Caroline Chen welcomed the Monarch students and updated us on our Club’s involvement with Monarch. The purchase of student-designed jewelry and stationery sets was highly recommended.
Melissa Chapman announced that this year our club will be providing Christmas gifts for 75 children in the Responsibility program. Members will be able to pick up letters from the children at next week’s meeting. The deadline to return them is December 5. Any member wishing to purchase a bicycle may write a check for $51, payable to Responsibility.
Carol Jensen accepted a check of $1000 from our Club, which will go to a Rotary matching grant for “Hand-in-Hand.” Hand-in-Hand is preparing to open its fourth school in Jerusalem, to promote peace and understanding between Jewish and Palestinian students, their families, and communities. Sandra Schrift and John Addams have also participated in this initiative.
Rotaract is presenting its annual “Jazz for Juvenile Diabetes” fundraiser on December 1 from 6-9 p.m. in downtown San Diego.
Our own Patsy Cowett, only eights days out from a successful hip replacement surgery, gave a heartfelt and moving “thank you” to club members for their support during her operation. Probably no one is more thankful than the surgeons and anesthesiologists who had to operate on the “judge who hears med-mal cases!” We love you Patsy and are glad you will soon be back in the saddle, er, bench.
 Larry Prosi was our very popular speaker. Larry’s day job is as Executive Vice President at 1st Pacific Bank, but his riveting weekend job is with the NFL, where he serves as On Field Director for the San Diego Chargers. Larry’s answer to the question, “Who is that guy on the field (wearing the mint green hat)?” is that he is the man in charge of making sure the game begins and ends on time, with all the requisite 20 commercial breaks that must be at least 1.50 seconds exactly. Whew, brings new meaning to “Miller time.”
Each NFL team has its own On Field Director, so there are only 32 nationwide. Larry is one of 18 original On Field Directors who are “lifers.” Larry is grooming his son to take over this position when he retires, which based on his enthusiasm for his job, will be in about 30 years. Kinda like Queen Elizabeth and Bonny Prince Charles.
One of Larry’s key observations from the field is that whoever has momentum in a game seems to overcome most other factors, such as team talent and record, to win the game. He also said the players are much bigger on the field than you realize. This is a bad thing considering that Larry has a high likelihood of being run over by professional football players, such as Randy Moss, who neglected to apologize after trouncing Larry on the sidelines. Ouch. Larry also shared that he finds Drew Brees to be a wonderful person, and has enjoyed getting to know many other players through his work.
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