Bulletin for August 23, 2010
Chamber President/CEO updates us on our 5-Star rated Chamber
By Mike Merrill
Preliminaries
 President Bill opened the meeting promptly at 12:30 |
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President Bill then asked Carson Mitchell to introduce his
special guest – 10 year old Grand Daughter Carson
Hunter Eisler who promptly led us in the pledge to the flag! Carson & Carson |
MOMENT: Ralph Lassa reminded us that, unlike today at triple digits – The coldest time of the year in California is summer in San Francisco!
VISITING ROTARIANS AND GUESTS: Janet Codding announced that we had no visiting Rotarians; but the Club cheerfully greeted Tracy Kline’s guest, Judy Wagner, who was visiting use for the 2nd time!
 Ralph |
 Janet |
Announcements and such...
President Bill reminded all of the SCARC Meeting on Thursday evening hosted by the Sebastopol Club at Corks – Russian River Vineyards. All members going from our Club are invited to Jim Valinoti’s home for wine tasting at 5pm – But you need to e-mail Jim if you plan on attending!
Chuck Stark reminded everybody of our renewed commitment to serve as support staff for the Levi Leipheimer GranFondo event on October 9, 2010. Last year we had a great time and got terrific PR for stepping up to task!
 Chuck |
 Kris |
Kris Lapore encouraged everybody to use the Club Brochure in soliciting Raffle items for the Crab Feed as maximum PR for the event. President Bill advised that he would be creating large boards to display our progress in getting those Raffle items in [both silent and live] sooner rather than later.
Smita Martinez announced that the Red-Badge project supporting Bare Farms in Santa Rosa is scheduled for 11am on October 23, 2010 – with lots cooking, raffles, bids and pumpkin carving for everyone! The event is at Bayer Farms Community Garden, a division of LandPaths and you can access them at this link: (www.landpaths.org/index.cfm/page/Bayer-Farm-Neighborhood-Park-and-Gardens/).
Gail Johnson brought us greetings from our Youth Exchange Student Leo who is staying with his first host family [Santa Rosa Club] and will be coming to us in 3 months – and we need to have our host family on board ASAP! Leo is attending Santa Rosa High and is from Belgium. Past host parents Gail, Jim Hinton, Jeff Ray & Mike Merrill all strongly encouraged members to take advantage of being a host for an opportunity to change their lives!
 Smita |
 Gail |
 PDG Mike |
President Bill and PDG Mike Merrill
introduced the recommendation of the Club Board of Directors to
object to Resolution 10-70 regarding Land Mine activities on the
basis of the included directive that Rotary support all activities –
as long as they are conforming with basic Rotarian principles - that
promote globally outlawing landmines – which is against the position
of the United States government; putting Rotary in adverse political
position. After some discussion, the club voted in favor of objecting to
Resolution 10-70 by a voice/hand vote.
Raffle
Brian Rickerson
won the opportunity to draw the black marble…but didn’t!
Gary Lucas got to select his
choice of wine – Red or White!
 Brian comes up empty |
 Gary wins the wine... AGAIN! |
Program: Chamber President/CEO Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coe, Santa Rosa Chamber Executive was introduced by President Bill.
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Mr. Coe has been in office one year. SR Chamber is a 5-Star top rated Chamber of Commerce; emphasizing connections between members, providing advocacy for Chamber members vis-à-vis governmental agencies and working to improve the local economy. The Chamber is promoting several major initiatives to improve the local economy:
[1] Establishment of the Tourism and Marketing BIA that imposes 3% assessment on lodging revenues that creates marketing budget of $1M per year for the BIA marketing program and $300K to the City economic development fund for marketing uses.
[2] Initiation of the BEST program [Building Economic Success Together] focusing on the following initiatives:
- Convincing local businesses to stay and grow here
- Reaching out to new manufacturing business that will bring dollars in from outside our area.
- Developing a ‘world class’ workforce – closing the gap in the Latino workforce to matching its increasing demographic.
- Working with Local Government Agencies to insure that they focus on being helpful to beginning business
- Supporting "start up" fledgling businesses with mentoring and allocation of resources.
Jonathan views the Chamber’s primary tasks as being the recruitment of business to come to our area and the development and maintenance of a "business friendly" environment. More of Jonathan’s and the Chamber’s commitment to the business community was evidenced in an article appearing in the Press Democrat.
| Your Bulletin Reporter: PDG Mike Merrill  |
Your
Bulletin Editor: Jim Valinoti  |