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weekly bulletin of the Rotary Club of Los Angeles, the fifth oldest Rotary club and one of the largest Rotary Clubs in the world
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Book Club members Roger Reck, Walker Railey, John Claerhout, Marjorie Heller, Paul Richey and Jagdish Jaganath display this week’s selections.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
FRIDAY: Doug Baker, Rotary
District 5280 Governor’s Visit
August 16: Catherine Sandoval,
Calif Public Utilities Commission
August 23: Robert J. Lowe,
CEO Lowe Enterprises
August 30: club is dark for
Labor Day
CALENDAR IT NOW
AUGUST 24: Griffith Park Hike
meet at 8am Parking Lot 1
VISIT WWW.ROTARYLA5.ORG FOR MORE
INFORMATION ON SPEAKERS & EVENTS
Rotary Club of Los Angeles
established 1909
August 9, 2013
rotaryLA5.org
Meeting Laughter disturbs reading concentration
Weekly Book Club Progress Stalled
Book Club Chair John Claerhout stated his group now has
the least productive meetings he’s seen in the 45 years since he joined LA5. “We have yet to finish a single book let alone
get through the first chapter or two,” he reported.
Vice chair Roger Reck confirmed the group’s lack of pro-gress. “In some years we had no interruptions whatsoever.
Now there is laughter every minute or two and the program speakers are much more interesting than our reading mate-
rial. How can we concentrate when everybody else in the
room is having such a party?”
The reading club’s fortunes have waxed and waned over its
long history. Its current membership is far below its record
participation when they discussed “The Kama Sutra.”
El Rodeo 3
California State Controller John Chiang and Prez Ken are all smiles before the big mix-up, but John is unaware of Prez Ken’s professional
wrestling credentials. For John this will be more challenging than arm-wrestling State Senator Bob Huff.
Prez Ken is an active Top 20 Wres-tling champion.
LOS ANGELES 5
Almost all years have surplus
Board goes on retreats together
No taxes
All vendors paid on time
No pensions to bother with
Special dedicated high-speed
desk for RSVP lunch will-calls
Highest lunch satisfaction
rating
Top budget item is the past presidents medical plan
premiums
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Consistent deficit financing
Divided legislature
Delayed tax refunds
Pays with I.O.U.s
Unfunded pensions
Bullet train
Lowest Standard & Poor’s
rating
Top budget items go to education, health human
services and prisons
If you missed the meeting last week
Prez Ken gently broke the bad news to Controller John: I can’t pay you the $100,000 cash honorarium
we promised but here’s an I.O.U.
SLAPDOWN of the CENTURY
President Ken
vs.
State Controller
John Chiang
L AWRY’s RESTAURANT will provide the venue and breakfast for the District Literacy
Breakfast on Friday, August 9. You’ve already missed the deadline to RSVP but plead
your case with chair Gerry Turner by calling him direct at 562-439-2111.
The Program Speaker will be Chris Palzis, author of the three “Goodness Gracious
Kids Club” book series. He’s also a totally mellow surfer from Hawaii.
The annual Literacy Breakfasts are a secret benefit of your Rotary membership. The event
draws a full crowd every year and, because of the outstanding speakers it draws, people can’t
wait to sign up for the next one.
Author Chris Palzis was an eligible bachelor on the Bravo cable series “The Millionaire Match-
maker” in 2009. His older maternal half-sister is actress Kelly Preston. Attend on Friday, have
a free breakfast, meet Chris and talk about catching the perfect wave.
Free breakfast and an inspiring speaker
Literacy Breakfast on Friday
4 El Rodeo
Registrations are now being accepted for the District
5280 humanitarian trip to Colombia in March 2014.
Annual trips are a tradition in District 5280. The first trip
to El Salvador was organized by LA5 in 2003 and was comprised of only 20 people. Groups as large as 130 peo-ple have subsequently visited Colombia, Costa Rica, Pa-
nama, Trinidad, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and
Puerto Rico.
Due to the limited number of people who can be accom-
modated, the deadline to register is October 15, 2013. Contact District Trip Chair Arturo Velasquez at in-
velj@aol.com for cost and other information.
District Trip 2014 to Colombia
When the Boss screws up your LA5 schedule
Can’t attend LA5 on Friday because your boss
is bugging you to finish a project? Then do a Make-Up at any Rotary Club and ask Secre-
tary Elizabeth Wheeler to credit your atten-
dance. Here are some nearby choices:
Burbank Sunrise Tuesdays 7:15 a.m.
Downey Tuesdays 12 noon
Hermosa Beach Tuesdays 12:15 p.m.
Tarzana Encino Tuesdays 6:00 p.m.
Palos Verdes Sunset Tuesdays 7:00 p.m.
See the entire list at WWW.ROTARY5280.ORG.
Rotarians You Want to Know:
Charisse Older
A s the new Sponsorship & Event Man-
ager for the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce, Charisse Older organizes
all kinds of events including networking mixers, educational seminars and large scale sig-nature events and galas. She is responsible for
developing partnership opportunities for corpo-rate sponsors who want to gain exposure in the
Beverly Hills business community.
“My Chamber membership and retention responsibilities over-lap perfectly with my Rotary world,” says Charisse. “When I
joined LA5 in 2009, I wanted to immerse myself in an organi-zation where I could incorporate my professional skills to help make a difference and just have fun with good people! I co-
chaired the Associates Committee with Zein Obagi where we planned mixers and funded a Shelter Box sent to Haiti after
the earthquake. I truly enjoyed working with and meeting fel-low Rotarians but more importantly I felt great about helping
others.”
Last year Charisse accepted an nomination to a Board Direc-tor position. “Working with the Board quickly got me up to speed on the scope of LA5’s community reach and that led to
an opportunity to help out at the Angel City Giveaway. If
any member wants to gain a great perspective of how the club works and understand
how all of our contributions intermesh, I recommend they begin by chairing a commit-
tee like I did. Your invest-ment of a little time will fit
nicely into your busy sched-ule and you will be rewarded
in many ways.”
“I think all of us want to make a positive impact and
leave something better than how we first found it. I truly believe you cannot just stand
still — you are either moving
forward or going in reverse.”
If you haven’t met Charisse
yet, then please introduce
yourself at the next meeting.
Chartered June 25, 1909
Club Leadership 2013-14
Ken Chong, President Alan Bernstein, President-Elect Jose Vera, Vice-President Elizabeth Wheeler, Secretary Don Robinson, Treasurer Jay Richardson, Past President
Club Service Arthur Kassel Paul Richey
Community Service Margaret Karren Jim Hoyt
Funding Todd Johnson Al Shonk
International Service Laine Wagenseller Rick Sarmiento
Membership and Retention Charisse Older Erick Weiss
Vocational Service John Miller John Jaacks
Youth Service Anthony Calloway Paul Jacques
Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Ekstrand Barry Hytowitz Steve Sommers
Executive Director Jon Gibby Jon@rotaryLA5.org
Rotary Club of Los Angeles 523 West Sixth Street, Suite 718 Los Angeles, CA 90014 Telephone 213.624.8601 Facsimile 213.624.2694 www.rotaryLA5.org
District 5280 Governor Doug Baker
El Rodeo Marc Leeka, Editor Tony Medley, Photographer
Charisse’s Favorites
The last book I read was “Remembership - New Thinking for Tomorrow's Membership Or-ganization” by Kyle Sexton.
The best city I have ever visited was was Paris. Beautiful!
I know it is junk food, but my guilty pleasure is digging into a
bag of barbecue potato chips.
If I had only one last restaurant meal in Los Angeles I would go to, I’d set my GPS to Manhattan Beach Post.
And three albums I would take to a desert island because I never grow tired of listening to them: Mumford & Sons "Sigh No More," Band of Horses "Everything All The Time" and "The Very Best Of Chicago."
El Rodeo 5
6 El Rodeo
District Governor
Whitens Teeth
for Club Visit
Photo courtesy Pyongyang Taxidermy Agency
R OTARY PRESIDENT RON BURTON asks every
member to pledge that they will choose one of the
following goals to assist their club’s membership:
● tell a friend or colleague about Rotary and bring them to a
club meeting or project
● change my Facebook profile picture to show my friends that
I'm proud to be a Rotarian
● tweet about being a member of Rotary
● volunteer as a mentor to a prospective or new member
● sponsor a new member
● recommend a friend or family member who doesn't live close
by to other clubs
● invite one or more participant of a Rotary program to a club
meeting or community service project
● promote a service project on Rotary Showcase
August is Membership
and Extension Month
What’s the ‘N’ on my badge?
I F YOUR ROTARY BADGE has the letter ‘N’ on it, it sig-
nifies that you have been recognized for
the highest level of participation in LA5. The ‘N’ is for Paul Netzel, past
LA5 president, former dis-trict governor and past RI Director.
It means that you will contribute $1 daily to the
LA5 Community Service Grants fund, sponsor a new member, do business
with a fellow Rotarian, join a committee and visit
another Rotary Club in District 5280.
A UGUST 9 is the date
for the annual Dis-trict Governor Visit
and District 5280 Governor Doug Baker hasn’t
wasted a minute improving his
appearance.
Governors are directed to make one formal visit to every club in
their district. LA5, the largest club in the region, invokes a
little fear into Governors be-cause many have not make a
formal presentation before such a large assembly. Governor
Doug comes from the humble Downey Club of only 64 mem-
bers. A recent informal survey revealed that few even remem-
ber him having served as the
club president.
Doug had an inexpensive face lift in addition to having his
teeth whitened. Attend on Au-gust 9 to see if it makes any
difference.
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