 |
||||||||||||||||
| Program Chair: Mark Rogo | July 18, 2013 | |||||||||||||||
 |
This Week...
July 24
Executive Board
Meeting
July 25 Club Presidents Panel "Keeping Up With the Joneses"
Upcoming...
August 1
Chris Gaynor
"Senior Craft Talk"
August 8
Simon Board, Ph.D.
"Designing Online Reputation
Mechanisms"
August 9
Literacy Breakfast Lawry's Steakhouse 7-9AM |
|||||||||||||||
|
July 25 Local Club Presidents "Keeping Up With the Joneses" |
||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||
|
August 1
Chris Gaynor
"Senior Craft Talk"
|
||||||||||||||||
|
Our President is Back! For his first welcome, he
invited PP Steve Scherer to lead the pledge.
The Invocation for Mark Rogo's Installation as President of our Rotary today was provided by Rabbi Sandy Regins of Leo Beck Temple in Bel Air. "O Thou who sustains the world, we ask You for three blessings... Bless the man we honor today and his loved ones; may the fulfillment he knows at this hour linger, and may the years to come be graced with more times of celebration like this one. Bless all of us who are gathered to celebrate him. For those who are afflicted, bring some healing. For those in pain or in need, some solace. And refuge too. We cannot prevent or control the storms of life, but we can build shelters to hold back the cold darkness, shelters to comfort and console, structures of justice and compassion. Bless all of Your children everywhere, and teach us at last to see them, everywhere, as our brothers and sisters. You have been so patient with our hatred and our failure to create justice. Make us, we pray, impatient. Help us see the world the way You do, so that some day, perhaps, in our time, we will learn at last that nothing which harms or destroys the human spirit can be done in Your name. Nothing. May the one who makes peace in the high places, help us to be among those who make peace here, for ourselves and our families for our community and our city, our world. Amen. MOTZI"
Our guests today included the lovely
Sharon Bradford, Rabbi Regins, Karen Ayers from Mark's
office and Maxine Rogo, Mark's beautiful mother.
(obviously adopted)
Our President shared he will NOT be sharing Irish or
Jewish history each week but rather a Rotary History
moment which, he then shared.
This week's Health
and Welfare Update:
President Mark's First Turkey
of the Month Award unfortunately
went to me, Aly Shoji! When I protested, our fine
President asked where I was this past Tuesday and
I immediately held out my hand for the deserving
award. In my earnest to make sure I was NOT late
for the District Breakfast on
Tuesday, I made sure I was bright and
early at the
Carson Community Center :/ That was fine and all
if it had been a District Conference as this is the
location for these meetings but District Breakfasts
are ALWAYS held at the Westin on Century Blvd (five
minutes from my house arrrrrrrrrgh!) I just told
Mark stick with me this year and you'll look like a
genius! ;) Thankfully b/c I was so early I was
still able to make the breakfast for the speaker,
newly installed DA
Jackie Lacey, and it was a terrific
program.
For the 12 Rotarians who answered Marks email trivia
while he was abroad (Ed Jackson, Chris Bradford, Brian
Whitney, Ron Lyster, John Woodall, Don Nelson, Andrew
Mukhey, Ann Samson, Aly Shoji, Diane Good, and Terry M.
White) he called everyone forward and presented us with
some "foxy" rewards. Please see pics for reference.
President Mark thanked PP Bill Goodwyn for hosting the
quarterly "Keep Mark and Aly in Line" club more commonly
known as the PP meeting and asked all the PP's attending
to stand so we could again, acknowledge and thank their
past and collective efforts to our club. THANK YOU!
Announcements:
Mark began by thanking his sponsors, Steve Scherer,
Peggy Bloomfield, Ed Gauld, and Gordon Fell. He has
been a student of Rotary for the past year and has
seen a well governed behind the scenes, organization
with basically cosmetic and "style change" only,
e.g., Mark's style will be different than Dwight's,
who's style was different from Ed's etc. Mark is
challenging our club to raise the bar and
expectations to be more than style change, stating
we are in the business of community service, not Thursday lunch.
His Goals for this year are:
He expects no whining and 100% participation. How do we
achieve this? He provided examples through the Board
Discretionary fund, led by example with himself and Ed
Jackson as society members, Dinner with your Ex, Bring a
Guest program with Tom Barron, White Elephant auction,
instituting Social Media Avenue of Service, and
tightening up requirements to be a member and remain a
member.
Our esteemed Past Presidents provided the membership
with the following information re: Rotary history,
by-laws, governance and customs, finance, endowments,
and our pilot program.
Rules and Bylaws
PP Ron Lyster:
Bylaws are the rules and regulations enacted by a corporation to provide a framework for its operation and management. The Rotary Club of Westwood Village - Los Angeles is a corporation, and we have Bylaws. In addition to the Bylaws, the club has adopted a Constitution, addressing a number of issues as required by Rotary International. You can find them both on the club's website. Here are a few of the provisions from these two documents, in no particular order and not verbatim:
History
PP Bill Goodwyn:
Rotary was created 108 years ago by Paul Harris a
lawyer in Chicago (mainly because he was lonely) and
he and several friends would get together once a
week rotating the location of their meeting thus the
genesis of the name rotary.
Rotary has grown to more than 1.2 million members in 34,300 rotary clubs in 180+ countries and territories. (If you wanted to visit a different club each week it would take 659 years to complete your journey.) Rotary is the oldest service organization in the world and has a storied history. Twenty-nine heads of state are the patriarch or matriarch of the organization; 49 members of the original united nations were Rotarians; rotary has had a key role in eliminating polio from the planet by inoculating more than two billion children today there are only a few hundred remaining cases around the world; rotary is credited in playing a key role in establishing a truce in the 1982 Falklands war; rotary has a permanent observer status at the united nations; and it created the largest and most sought-after graduate scholarship in the world. There's a saying that the lions play in the cities, the Kiwanis manage the cities, and Rotarians own the cities. There's some truth to that because you have to be invited to join rotary and the qualifications require that you own, manage, or have a leadership position in your respective business or profession. When you consider the number of Rotarians around the world you're looking at a lot of horsepower. To administer the world organization rotary divides all of its clubs into more than 540 districts each led by an elected governor for a one year term. There are some districts that cover four time zones and several include at least 9 countries. My counterpart in Alaska had to visit some of his clubs in a dogsled. I know of one governor in northern Africa who had to travel to three different countries to reach some of his clubs in a fourth country because of travel restrictions caused by warfare. One of the unique things about rotary is that we fire all of our leaders on June 30th and replace them with people who've never been in the job on July 1st. All leadership positions are for a term of one year with the exception of the nineteen international directors who serve two years. Consequently leadership development is a critical factor in training our upcoming leaders and in some instances an elected leader can't serve in their position until he/she has completed the required training. All of this is paid for by a portion of your dues going to the district and the international organization. Currently that figure totals $137.00 annually. The RI Board keeps control of the organization through what's known as the standard club constitution and by-laws. Meaning that every one of the clubs worldwide agrees to follow the same rules of governance and are awarded their certificate as a club only after signing off on all the required agreements. If a club goes astray RI Can and will yank its license to operate. Another unique thing about rotary is the importance it places on protocol. Considering the quality of membership the myriad of cultures and languages protocol becomes a thing of great importance. There's a joke about attending the international convention (where president mark just returned from Portugal) that those wearing six ribbons only talk to others wearing six ribbons and those wearing five you get the picture. The protocols even extend to the club level. The specific way we should introduce a visiting Rotarian or guest the decorum we extend to our program speakers the preparation for the governors official visit the way we vet prospective members are all examples of how rotary history influences every Rotarian. Some might think the governors official visit is a big yawn and depending on the governor that might be an understatement. But.....let me explain what's really involved in that visit. The governor is required to inspect every club in his/her district and submit a five page report on the visit which is on permanent file at RI Headquarters. That report includes the health of the club the performance of the president the current activities of the club and the governor's overall impression. This report is used to identify future leaders for higher positions in rotary and to identify problems the club might be experiencing. So if you're a past president of this club I know you'll be thrilled to learn there is a permanent report on file at RI Headquarters regarding your performance.
Club Finances
PP Don Nelson:
The Westwood Rotary Club Foundation underwrites the
charitable activities of the Club's Community,
International, Vocational, and Youth Avenues of Service.
It was founded in 1992 as a 501(c) (3) tax exempt
organization. This means that contributions to it
qualify as a charitable contributions for income tax
purposes. It is for this reason that we bill dues
one-half from the Club and one-half from the Foundation.
This is helpful to retired or other members who can
deduct Foundation dues as a contribution if they do not
have a business where they could otherwise deduct dues
as a business expense.
Half of your total dues are deposited in the Foundation
along with Presidential special fines and other memorial
and honorarium gifts received. The dividends and
interest received on the investments are reinvested in
the Foundation.
The Foundation consists of four separate funds that
Gordon Fell will discuss shortly. But overall we have
had very favorable growth over the last four years. The
balances at the end of the last four years were: $760M,
$811M, $803M, and $906M, respectively. The large jump
this last year is mainly due to the major gift of
$60,000 donated by Jim Collins in recognition his 60
years of membership in the Club.
The income of the Club is mainly from the other one-half
of your total dues plus a small override on the meals.
This comes from prepaid meals charged to members who do
not eat them or makeup at another club.
I will be emailing all members a condensed financial
statements for the Club and Foundation for the last
fiscal year ended June 30, 2013 shortly after the Board
approves the financials at its next meeting on July 24.
If you have any questions regarding these statements,
please talk with me.
We use ClubRunner to process membership records,
attendance, and billings to members. ClubRunner is
integrated with RI records and whenever you change your
address or other demographic data, that change is
automatically made to the records at RI. In this
respect, I sent you emails last week asking you to check
the information in your profile. This is important as I
will be preparing our new Club Roster next week using
the information in ClubRunner. Please attend to this
matter promptly as it is important that we use current
information in the new Roster.
Also, you can check the status of your account and
attendance record at any time simply by logging in to
ClubRunner. If you have any problem with this process,
please call me.
Foundation
PP Gordon Fell:
Gordon discussed the four funds in our WVRC Foundation,
the Endowment Fund, The Phillips Fund, The Virginia
Gandy Fund and the PLLUS fund. He also told us that
that there is a Foundation Board of Trustees which
consists of the current officers of the club as well as
others as well as a Board of Managers. The Board of
Managers consists of the current Club President, as
Chair and 6 other managers elected for 3 year terms by
the Board with a preference for Past Presidents of the
Club. The Trustees manage the charitable gifts made by
the Foundation and the Managers determine and oversee
the investment policy. Currently the Board of Managers
consists of President Mark, IPP Dwight Heikkila and Past
Presidents Edwin Gauld, Ronald Lyster, Gordon Fell,
Christopher Gaynor, Edward Jackson and Robert Wessling.
Great job in your FIRST meeting President, Mark!
Pilot Program
PP Ed Jackson:Rotary International's purpose for the pilot program was to develop exceptional and effective practices that would lead Rotary successfully into the next century. Westwood Village Rotary club's purpose for the pilot program is as an enhancement to our strategic plan for the next 3 to 5 years with yearly monitoring by the club. Terry White, Gordon Fell, Don Nelson, Peggy Bloomfield, PDG's Andy Anderson and Bill Goodwyn, Ed Jackson as well as Dr. Colby Smith, Dwight Heikkila, Pres. Mark Rogo and PE Aly Shoji helped or are helping to shape the pilot program. Young professionals are engaging with Rotary through social media which is increasingly important for us to communicate inter-community and throughout our Universe. The use of video and audio streaming is a must for achieving interactive and hands on support, and completing relevant projects with our friends and neighbors. Our club is passionately doing everything we said in making the pilot program happen. I would like to see Internet streaming done well this year with the help of Dick Thompson, Peter More, and Ron Lyster and any other interested club members. Changes have already been made because of the pilot program. An example would be satellite clubs, which is how Beverly Hills club is incorporating their young professionals. Another change is our Associate and Corporate Memberships, designed to increase participation in Rotary. More info on the Pilot Program
Next Week:
Local Club Presidents Panel- "Keeping Up With the
Joneses"
Head
Table:
YYE & PE, Aly Shoji
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
