Fitz covers the club assembly

Usually I plan on getting a little sleep on Club Service day, but this day I ended up as your Reporter and actually had to pay attention. So, I got there real early only to find that Roy did not show up to do his set up duties. So I helped with that, but it didn’t get me off the hook.

We had no visitors, which is no surprise. Francia gave us the up-date on her latest escapades, which included going over to see Rorry Dunbar, who is doing well after his hip replacement surgery. She also reported going to Molbak’s and a movie with Gary and Donna Whitsell.

Francia cheered Rorry. Hip hip hooray!

Eric Greenwood said we are reviewing our 2008 auction in order to be inventive in 2009. I guess that means we are re-inventing the wheel, but we know that it needs to be round. He is arranging 1 and 1/2 hour fireside chats where groups of us will get together at Brittany Park in January and discuss our club direction and commitments. This will insure that the wheel is going in the right direction, once we get it invented again.

President Chris gave kudos to Alex Hopkins, Terry Jarvis, Erv DeSmet, John Hughes, himself, and this writer, for helping out at Woodinville High School with the Culminating Projects.

Bad news came up when we heard that Rick Pisani is resigning from the club to pursue his career. We will sure miss his enthusiastic support! Gary Whitsell will assume his place on the board as past president.

Duty rosters were handed out so those who don’t get email can work also.

Joe Truglio then talked - for hours - covering a variety of topics. He gave us the mechanics of Operation Warm, coming up this weekend. We will be handing out 83 cases of coats! He named the dictionary captains: Greg Riggs, Becky Clark, Burke Barker, John Creason, and Rohit Kumar. You will want to avoid these folks until after February, as they will be building a team for each school and will be looking for volunteers. Then Joe droned on about 2 work parties for the Food Life Line. They are Saturday the 21^st of February and Saturday the 11^th of April. Shift times are 8:30 AM to Noon, and 1:00 PM until 3:30. Do one or both. He doesn’t care. Finally he said he is looking for a person to serve as the committee Chairman for the Vocational Service Committee. This is a very prestigious job, and the opportunity to work under Joe is a special privilege. Please see Joe for qualifications, requirements, applications, and interview appointments.

I thought Joe was bad, but then John Hughes, the Grand Marshal himself, got the floor. He went straight for the podium and discussed the history of our by-laws, the history of Rotary International by-laws, the reasons we need to address them, why he was self selected, and did everything but read them. He did pass them out in full written form, along with a “cliff note” version. While it made interesting reading, he did make one grievous error and forgot to include our Senior Advisory Board member. Fortunately Jay Soloff and Gary Whitsell astutely picked up on this error and proposed an amendment to Article 4, Section 12. The amendment and the new by-laws passed without further discussion.

Then we heard all about the director positions, their responsibilities, and on and on and on. Fortunately a hand-out was passed out, so I do not have to write all that down.

Then John said some important stuff. He and Jay Soloff went to all the Woodinville Wine Country wineries for their Christmas tasting, and solicited ALL the wine for our next auction event! Now that is some good work! And, in addition, they lined up 4 new potential members and passed off the real work to the membership committee. And, to further cap their successes, they got a host of ideas for procurement for next year. Way to go John and Jay! I forgive you, John, for sleeping on the podium.

Our new slate of officers for 2009-2010 was presented. The slate includes Al Marsh, CEO, John Hughes, VP, Julian Denes, Secretary, Mike Visse, Treasurer, and Erv DeSmet as President Elect. The slate received unanimous approval, which was really good, because no one else was even nominated.

President-elect-nominee-elect Erv DeSmet Jr.

Chris Boland quickly dispatched three district proposed resolutions that we needed to vote on. Each received a positive response from the club. You can get copies of these by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope, to the Woodinville Rotary post office box. A quick response is promised, soon after the holidays.

December 11^th Jorge Gonzalez turns “the new 40”. He mumbled on about a new grand daughter and wanted to show several slides and talk about her, but was shouted down. Then he tried the same ploy to tell us about a Baltic Sea cruise, and also was shouted down. (The crowd had consumed quite a bit of coffee by this time.) He ended by saying he had a good year, and immediately received a hearty round of applause and some singing followed.

Jorge advanced a decade

Then Ignacio Rios Mendez gave us a bottle of fine Tequila, which President Boland wisely stashed away for the Sock Hop. You might want to put it on your calendar. It is Tuesday, January 27^th, 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. It is a 1950s – 1960s Sock Hop theme. Appropriate dress is encouraged. We will have a DJ, a dance instructor visit, chaperones, and the whole works.

Juice for the sock hop from Ignacio

We then sadly said goodbye to Ignacio “Nacho” (with a standing ovation) and promised to visit him in Mexico.

Sergeant Tana Baumler extracted fines from Jorge and Becky for confusion due to the nametag switch.

Badges, who's got badges?

And, she finally cleared up the fine waiver confusion also. Only the old little ones are good from now on. The others just get torn up. Jay Fiske, Jay Soloff, Roger Martindill, and Dennis Johnson all paid because they were so happy.

Max had the chance for the marble, but proceeded to grab one of the other six. It should be close to $450 by next week. Better show up!

Wrong sphere

Respectfully submitted, Chief Fitz

Next Reporter:
Erv DeSmet
December 16