JanUary 19, 2005
This week’s Bulletin was written by Matt McGowan
THIS WEEK’S MEETING
President Ron braved and survived the harsh 5-degree
temperatures of Marble Head, Mass to return and lead us for the 26th
meeting of the Rotary Centennial Year. Ron covered the Invocation and read the
second half of “You are Blessed”.
Surprisingly he failed to mention how blessed we all are never to see 5
degree temperatures in 
Diego!! To celebrate the fine weather we
are a custom to experiencing, Linda J lead us in song with “O What A
Beautiful Morning”. A good mix of visiting guest and Rotarians were on
hand, but John Hammond form the Baldock Rotary Club in the UK was by far the
most notable (Baldock, England was the home of the Knights of Templar).
Announcements
Ø Frank De Francesco. was drumming up support for the Rotary “Mardi Gras” District 5340 Conference on 2/4 and 2/5/2005 in San Diego. He is selling raffle tickets at 5 for $100 dollars (or $20 dollars each). Raffle tickets can be used as credit to your Paul Harris Fellowship.
Ø District Council meeting will be on 2/22/2005 at the La Jolla Marriott. The club will pay for your dinner if you go, you will pay if you no show!
Ø Maureen Eberle gave us an update on the RYLA weekend on 4/1 thru 4/3 2005. Her panel has the difficult task of picking a few candidates out of a very talented pool of 10-12 students from San Diego City High School.
Ø Cynthia Sener is still looking for that great Rotary support and business experience to assist in a Career Fair on January 29th at St. Vincent de Paul Village. Legally we are covered with experience, but other vocations are encouraged to sign up! Also donations of business attire from your closets would be more than welcomed and very helpful.
Ø Alexandra Kwoka reported on our clubs involvement in the San Diego River Project. There will be a great hands on clean up project taking place on 2/12/2005 from 9am to 12 noon at the Bird Nesting Area.
Ø Mel Gallegos gave a preliminary report on the generous $10,000 dollars contribution our club is giving to the Tsunami relief effort in South East Asia. $2500 will go to Rotary’s International Services efforts and the rest will be used to support Rotary Orphans, Micro banking projects and the efforts of a Northern CA PDG living in Thailand.
Ø Downtown
Breakfast Rotary’s “40’s Night on the USS Midway
Carrier” Fundraiser will take place on 4/23/2005. Warren Potts is in need
of volunteers and the entire clubs support.
Ø 
Heather Xitco finally turned her Red badge to
Blue. Congratulations!
SGT-AT-ARMS
Ø Don Lang won last weeks raffle winner
Ø Steve Seligmann was hit for a cell phone violation plus his son’s engagement
Ø Larry Nuffer was happy to brag that his 13 year old son would be attending the Presidential Inauguration in Washington DC
Ø Carol Jensen was happy to have her daughter coming to town from Frigid Vermont
Student of the Month
It was our honor to recognize San Diego High
Schools’ Helena Palencia as our student of the month. Helena was proposed
to us from her Biotech Classroom Teacher Kate O’Connor. She is a 3.9 GPA senior looking to attend a
California State College where she hopes to become a High School Counselor.
Kudos to SDDB Rotary
Did you know that thanks to all our club members’ commitment to “Service Above Self”, We have contributed in excess of $33,000 dollars to worthy charities in the last 4 month alone.
This Week’s Program
In Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King and the precedent
setting ruling of the 1954 Brown vs. Board
of Education ruling, our Club was very fortunate to have Dr. Shirley Weber
with us. Dr. Weber is a professor of African Studies and Chair of Black Studies
over at SDSU (Go Aztecs). Dr. Weber has very impressive credentials; earning a
PhD in African Studies at the age of 26, twice named Outstanding Young Woman in
American and having served two terms on the San Diego School Board. Dr. 
Weber’s background and passion for her
work was rooted in the foundation of her mother’s motto “ That the
more you give, the more you get.” It was easy to see that she has had a
positive impact on the San Diego Educational Community, and that she has
continuously been giving back to her community.
Dr. Weber enlightened us and opened our eyes to some of the inequalities and problems in our school systems today. Our attempts to overcome some of the achievement gaps between Black, Latino, and White students are still falling short. Simple bussing of students from South of the 8 to schools to North of the 8 schools are doing very little when test scores are broken down and compared between the groups. Dr. Weber feels that changes need to be made to the curriculum in all schools so that they address the specific cultural needs of the students in those areas. Our expectations for children from certain cultures need to change so that those students can be free to choose who and what they want to be, not what our education system leads them to be.
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