December 19, 2001
This Bulletin Was
Written by Lynn Hamilton
This Week’s Meeting
Our President, Melissa Blackburn, called our last meeting of 2001 to order. Rob Berry followed with the Pledge of Allegiance. Our new member, Bill Poirier, read the invocation, reminding us that we can make a difference with even the small things we do. Jim Dunn’s mother, Julie Dunn, lead us in a holiday favorite, “Jingle Bells” (Jim, we thought you were kidding when you suggested “In the Good Old Summertime but we were not sure.)
As is Club tradition, our President presented a gift to our faithful University Club servers who have taken such good care of us this year. Further generosity was displayed in true Rotary spirit by Margaret Oppliger who presented our Ambassadorial Scholar, Vanessa Dubois with 2 tickets to the Holiday Bowl. Leah Swearingen “bribed” Vanessa to root for her team, the Texas Longhorns.
Announcements
Ø John Turpit made one more plea for two or more dedicated Rotarians to join him in the Kids at Heart program which meets at 5:30PM every Tuesday during the school year at One America Plaza for tutoring second and third graders from Washington Elementary. To help lure some assistance, John offered $100, donated to the charity of their choice, to the first two volunteers. Please call John at his office 858-430-4300 NOW!
Ø Colette Murray encouraged us all to keep feeding the Paul Harris Fellowship “pigs”. She reminded us that our District 5340 is often the most generous district in the world and those we, as a Club, maintain an important role in contributions. Dave Ferguson announced that Pat Moore is the most recent member to join the ranks of Paul Harris Fellows. Congrats to Pat!!
Ø Vanessa Dubois wished us all a Merry Christmas and in her own charming way, told us that we have made every day like Christmas for her!
Ø Hugh Largey was recognized for the great success of the Letters to Santa this year. It was noted that Melissa Blackburn and Jennifer Cusick rallied a last minute effort to sponsor 100 children. Rumor is that our amazing President found 86 “Santas” among her friends and coworkers!!
Fines
Sergeant Frank offered Howard Williams lottery tickets to celebrate the Doctor’s birthday this week. Howard asked if he could “have a word” and told us of his latest marathon race in Hawaii. Slipping into a new age category with this birthday, Howard looks forward to even greater victories! The best part is that Howard has raised many thousands of dollars through his athletic achievements for the Leukemia Society.
Joe Ciokon, sporting a “Behind Enemy Lines” ID tag, mentioned his involvement with this latest military themed movie. Joe, sounds like you are having WAY too much fun at work these days!
Speaker
Maureen Eberle introduced our speaker, Salvatore Giametta, noted member of the San Diego Mafia…oops…. VP of Community Relations for CONVIS. Salvatore outlined the importance of tourism to the local economy, bringing 120,000 jobs to San Diego with ripple effects to other industries for a total of 5.2 billion dollars in revenue. Transit Occupancy Tax of 110 million dollars is part of that income which underwrites policemen, firefighters, street maintenance and major projects such as the ballpark and new downtown central library.
San Diego is a great city to promote, needless to say, and CONVIS is the “keeper of the brand”, producing radio, TV, and billboard advertising. With 39 Board members and a $16.3 million dollar budget, CONVIS has 1700 member companies.
Fortunately for San Diego, the terrorist attacks of
September 11 did not dramatically affect tourism since many of our visitors
travel here by car. Only 2
conventions were cancelled primarily because the delegates could not arrange
for air travel immediately following 9/11. Single property hotel meeting did
suffer, however, but their business had already begun to slow due to the
softening of the economy.
CONVIS is cautiously optimistic for the New Year and has begun a program encouraging Californians to come to San Diego for vacation. A discount coupon book for local attractions is available at www.sandiego.org. No sign of discounts, though, we noticed, for tickets to the Super Bowl scheduled for our town in 2003!
BEST WISHES TO ALL FOR CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW YEAR!! WE WILL
SEE YOU AT OUR NEXT MEETING ON JANUARY 9, 2002!!
Home - Calendar of Events - Getting Involved - Member Info
Service Committees - Bulletin - Links
Created by David Tereschuck of:
Copyright © 2000