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

Bulletin
June 5, 2000
by Tom Boylan

Another "Has Been"

At or about 12:30 Past President Ken Kushnir made it clear he still has what it takes to bring the club to order.

Past President Ken Kushnir  ('88-'89)  ('88-'89) once again charmed us with his mild- mannered wit as he began his June reign standing in for President Patsy.

PLEDGE, ROTARY MOMENT
VISITING ROTARIANS

Teri Evans offered our pledge.

Mike Mullins asked that we remember the children and be thankful for our families and the beautiful weather we have been experiencing.

Caroline Fox wondered if there were any downtown members left for their club meeting. We counted 13 of the "other club" members among us. One member of the Santa Rosa East club joined us while the award for the furthest to travel went to Ivan & Irina Moroz whose club in the Ukraine was the topic of the day.

Bob Zeni introduced his guest Jan Hansen. Bob Miller brought Pete Essek to the meeting and Robin Marrs had the pleasure of introducing the Moroz family as his guests.

In his preliminary remarks, Past President Ken singled out Bob Marigo for some "payback" attention that would come later in the meeting.

Hindsight meant no glasses!

Ken Kushnir opened our announcements by declaring the only difference between today’s meeting and the last meeting he presided over, 12 years ago, is that now he needs glasses.

Jeri Arnold who is a new proposed member was given the green light at our last Board Meeting to operate in our club with a Banking Classification.

Bob Marigo passed on some serious news regarding President Patsy Barnes’ medical condition. She is back in the hospital and having a hard time holding down food. You might want to contact Kaiser Permanente for where to direct cards and keep her in your prayers.

Janet Codding spent the weekend at a fund-raiser for the Kid’s Street Theater. She applauded the work of fellow club members Terr Galazzo, Chris Parr and Pete Lamonica in helping to raise $20,000. That’s double the anticipated goal.

Teri Evans asked that members with less than 2 years in the Club attend a cocktail party on June 23, 6 p.m. at Susan Nowacki’s home.

Bob Zeni introduced our ‘2000 Scholarship’ winners. Stacey Redd will put her $1000 to work at U.C. Santa Barbara. She would like to explore writing. Possibly we’ll have a new writer for the bulletin?

Edward Kim will take his scholarship to U.C. Berkeley where his math and computer science skills will make our future a lot brighter.

Bob Miller got off on the right foot by declaring there are 402 happy feet housed in shoes that were provided by the Club’s donations. $8500 was donated along with the two Bobs’ energy. Bob Marigo being the other Bob.

Jim Valinoti had the pleasure of announcing the "New Rotarian of the Year" award. This year’s recipient is extremely dedicated to this club and her energy has been felt in numerous ways. Caroline Fox according to Jim, "says yes to everything". Caroline has said yes to housing our exchange student, hosting the visiting G.S.I. Team, working on the Crab Feed Committee, and her work as a temporary bulletin editor kept our bulletins looking the best in the district. Thank you Caroline!

Caroline Fox and husband Steve (another Mother Clubber) posed with Caroline's well deserved recognition award as our first ever "New Rotarian of the Year"  Boo Ya Caroline!!!

RECOGNITION 

Fine-ally!

Bob Zeni shared a harrowing story of wandering around Tahiti looking for people with clothes on. It took 11 days. Ken suggested Bob buy the pictures he had obtained for a mere $5.

Harry Rubins is experiencing a boom in business and suggested that rather than fine him, he would make a donation of $25 to the S.O.S. fund. It was decided there haven’t been enough photos of Harry in the newspaper lately and perhaps its because the press found out the photos were from high school days.

Bob Marigo found a little pay back fine waiting for him. A gentle reminder of the number of fines he levied against Ken when Bob was reliving his power days. S.O.S. was the winner in the power struggle with a $25 donation.

For declaring their collective new ages and anniversaries, Ken collected $5 each from Caroline Fox, Teri Evans, Rich Pratt, Bob Zeni and Mike Arendt.

RAFFLE

All the Marbles

Harry Rubins managed to sell the winning raffle ticket to Bill Dodson, who proceeded to draw the wrong marble. That $750 is safe this week. Secretary Fred Zmarzly put the second tickets winnings in a first class cause, S.O.S.

PROGRAM

We’re not very different

When Robin Marrs took the podium he introduced the program for the day with a very special sentiment. Last year we were introduced to a young woman who’s home was both in her native Ukraine and in Santa Rosa. She was living with the Marrs family and attending Sonoma State College. Today we were introduced to the rest of her family who were here to see their daughter graduate.

Our guest speakers Ivan & Irina Moroz both from the Rotary Club of Cherkasy spoke to us through their daughter Inna.

Ivan and Irina Moroz live in the Ukraine and through their association with Robin were inspired to bring Rotary to their city. Speaking to us through her daughter as interpreter, she brought us warm wishes from their newly formed Club. Irina told us how she was inspired to form a Rotary Club while visiting Santa Rosa in 1996. She found the meeting she attended very interesting and on her return she and her husband set out to bring Rotary alive in their city, Cherkasy (Cher-coz-see). Their efforts came to fruition as the Cherkasy Rotary Club was chartered in 1997.

The Club was originally formed under the French District. The popularity of growth of Rotary has caused realignment, and they are now part of the Poland District. Current membership is at 25. They have frequent visitors from many nationalities, including Americans, and French. Irina invited us all to visit their club and then introduced her husband Ivan.

Ivan is a retired Interpol officer who now works as a lawyer for Utel, a phone company. He too thanked us for allowing him to speak with us. In comparing his new club with other more established clubs he drew an analogy of the mature vs. the young. He clarified that although they were young, they had made great progress.

There is an inherent difficulty in getting things done due to their government’s procedures and the current economic conditions. He emphasized the Ukraine government has many obstacles to overcome considering its status as a new country. In the meantime they do their best to help those in need.

As an example of the help they provide he explained the Ukraine has orphanages which are filled with children who are separated from parents for a variety of reasons including poverty. There are 21 in Cherkasy alone. Many of the orphans are there because their parents are dealing with alcohol and drug problems and eventually fail to take care of the children. Those children reside in the state run orphanages. The Cherkasy Rotary Club is sponsoring an orphan at a university, and they hope to sponsor more as the group grows. The club also runs a tennis tournament with proceeds from the event going toward the orphanages.

Ivan relayed that he sometimes feels the club fails to do enough, but they continue to try. The morale of the club members is lifted through activities centered on families. They hold family picnics and other activities. He too invites us to visit the Cherkasy Rotary Club.

A good round of questions were fielded by Ivan and Irina, and the information follows:

• The club has an open policy toward members. Anyone can join.
• Cherkasy has 300,000 population in an area of less size than Santa Rosa. Most live in apartment complexes.
• During the Soviet days the city had 5 major chemical plants, primarily for the military. Today all but one of these is boarded up. The remaining plant makes fertilizer for the agriculturally rich zone.
• Education under the former Soviet Union was good. Current conditions aren’t as good, and with the dismal economy the opportunity for finding gainful employment is bleak.

Their daughter Inna is looking for work in information services. Any connections?

Son Igor would prefer to make a name for himself on the tennis court.

We really aren’t that different.

The Writer

Tom Boylan, who makes the following disclaimer, wrote this Rotary Bulletin:

For the sake of authenticity, I took most of my notes in Russian. When I tried to read what I had written, it occurred to me… I don’t know the language. If I failed to get all the details correct, I apologize."