Monday Noon, Los Robles Lodge
925 Edwards Ave., Santa Rosa, California

Bulletin
April 24, 2000
by Ron Allen

Today’s pledge was lead by Dale Sipe and for the Rotary Moment Louie Giacometti gave us a traditional pre-meal blessing. Janet Codding announced the visiting Rotarians. We had 8 visitors from, the Downtown Club, 2 from the Sunrise Club and Tony Stark was visiting all the way from Florida.

Past President Bob Marigo (even Stallone pales in his presence) culminated his 'Reign" as Acting President in fine style.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Chris Parr announced the sale of the first new District 5130 Rotary pin. Be the first on your block with one! The cost is $5.00 for a pack. Fill out the blue flier and turn it in to Chris or just rush up to her, jump up and down, wave your arms in the air and shout I want you to PIN ME!!! Once you come across with the Five she will oblige you.

Bill Fisher says the Golf & District Conference schedule for May 4^th is not designed as a new Rotarian's training session. It is rather an update on the most recent happenings. There will be speakers and attendees from all over the world. If you are not able to attend the entire day, please come to the lunch at the very least. It is sure to be worth your while.

John Palmer: It’s time again for the SOS Flower Delivery Program. We need 10 teams for Friday & Saturday May 12 and 13 to deliver flowers.

Special Announcements (hopefully for the last time J )We are NOT dark on May 1 or 8^th.

May 16 will be the regularly scheduled SRWR Board Meeting.

May 22^nd we will have the 35^th Annual Charter Member Anniversary Celebration at our regularly scheduled meeting.

Acting President Bob Marigo presented a dashingly handsome man (Ron Allen) with a check for $1,140 dollars as the grand prize in the raffle of April 3, 2000. ABOUT TIME! (Just kidding.) And well deserved! Congratulations Ron!!!

In yet another act of random philanthropy Mike Moore has been kind enough to donate a Sharp (PG-D210U) LCD projector valued at over $6,500. For you techno geeks "this thing does it all". Not only will it throw a 300-inch image from just about any computer, VCR or other video device across the county (with stereo sound to boot), but also it will wash your car, feed your fish and pay your bills, all while you sleep! The remote that goes with it is a couch potato's delight enabling you to run anything from anywhere in the Continental United States (and some areas of Mexico and Canada). It also doubles as a laser weapon/pointer that is capable of either melting a tank or identifying on-screen items during a presentation. Wow!!!! Thanks Mike. (Your bulletin editor read the manual and is in Hog Heaven J )

Once again we are humbled by the generosity of Mike Moore. What a "Sharp" guy!

Acting President Bob requested a moment of silence for Anne Abrams’ mother who recently passed away. Our thoughts are with you Anne.

Susan Nowacki gave a fantastic craft talk. She began with a story of learning to drive a stick shift while dropping her father off at Rotary. Her father has perfect attendance for many years in his club and continues with that status today. Congratulations George Mickelsen! Susan obtained her university degree at Puget Sound in 1967. Subsequent to graduation she spent considerable time visiting and traveling through the Iron Curtain countries. She then finished her trip by traveling through Western Europe for several months. She married Dean in 1971 and they had two boys. Today both of her sons are pursuing careers in the high tech industry. Her eldest son is 26 and her other son Ross who lives and works in New York City, is 22 years old. In 1990 Dean and Susan moved from Saratoga to Santa Rosa and built a home in Fountain Grove. She has 15 years experience in the Mortgage brokerage business and is currently employed as a Mortgage Broker for Valley Financial in Santa Rosa.

Susan Nowacki took us through the path that let her to Rotary and Sonoma County.

John Withers shared with us (in depth), what he experienced while visiting Washington, DC, during the most recent riots that occurred there. He was there for a week and claims this is the most police he has ever seen in one place at one time. (Of course that doesn't include the large "police action" that he participated in during the early 50's J ) In front of the White House armed guards where stationed every 10 feet with armed men inside the grounds. Thanks for the info John.

This was Duncan Holt’s last meeting. He has been a fantastic member of our club and a generous contributor to Rotary. Along with Pete Lamonica he did an incredible job Co-Chairing the most successful SRWR Crab Feed to date. Thanks for all the years of fellowship and "Service Above Self" you have given to our members individually, to the club and Rotary as well. We expect to see you back often, Duncan!

Farewell Duncan, we'll miss you!

RECOGNITION

Mike Arendt was fined for the upcoming weddings of his daughter Christy and his son Brian that will occur in July and August. Daughter Christy is getting married in Santa Rosa, and will settle with her new husband Cory Willis (the former Cardinal Newman Star Quarterback) who is currently attending Montana State College. Mike and Sherry's son Brian is going be married in Southern California, where he is employed by Alcone, a marketing firm.

Chris Rosell was fined $10 for his immortalizing in the Press Democrat

Bill Dodson was fined $10 for his publicity involving the Housing Coalition. The Mayor is assembling a task force to be called on when new housing is proposed.

Bob Miller was fined for god knows what but as he kept speaking up the fine kept going up. Sold at $15

Raffle

Chris Parr drew the winning ticket for the marble however, no winner. Better luck next week Chris.

Ron Allen won the $25 and donated it to SOS. Really, I only bought 3 tickets! Fix fix fix! (Sure Ron..............Louie Capuano rightly asked if we could buy Ron Allen futuresJ )

PROGRAM

Our speaker Eckerd Konkel was introduced by none other than his boss; the Chairman of the Board of BIW Connector Systems, John Hathaway.

Mr. Konkel was born in West Germany and in 1956 moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Shortly after that he moved to Boston. Eck graduated Boston University while he lived in Syracuse. In 1982 he moved to California to become a Sales Manager. In 1990 we all witnessed the peaceful revolution in the eastern block countries. After 45 years the wall fell when a new government was elected. The total cost of the reunification was $800 billion. During his visit to East Germany in June Eck witnessed deep emotion in the people of East Germany. Eck visited his cousins in East Germany that he had not seen for a long time. During the slide presentation he discussed the lack of entertainment items to purchase in East Germany resulting in many of the people having large savings. The Levant automobile was a status symbol and many waited 14 years for one. The housing was very affordable at the time, 50 Austmarks per month on a monthly salary of 1000 Austmarks. Many East Germans were also proud of their television sets. While the programming was poor they were however, a status symbol. He also showed a slide of a large shopping center. Unfortunately Eck said that the center contained nothing to buy. Further, many grocery stores contained little more than the bare necessities such as bread. So while the basic needs where taken care of, life in East Germany seemed to contain no frills.

Today East Germany has approximately 20% unemployment. While visiting Eck noticed a large divide between the "easties" and the "westies" as they called one another. The East Germans feel the "westies" are know it alls and the West Germans feel the "easties" are ungrateful. All in all, an interesting and enlightening experience for Eck....... and us. Thanks for the program Eck!