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.”

2 El Rodeo

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.