We welcomed a visiting Rotarian from Calcutta, India and another visiting Rotarian from Scottsdale who was making his second visit and is interested in joining our Club as he and his wife have recently moved here.
Tim Hornbecker (Nonprofit Management | Retired) presented a check from the San Francisco Rotary Foundation for the Youth Leadership Initiative to Lynn Luckow (Development | LikeMinded.org) and Connor Krone (Education: Management | Student Investment Lab), who were eloquent recipients.Dan Joraanstad (Financial Services: Advising | Retired) presided over yet another new member induction. It's become a welcome habit! President Casey Blair (Financial Services: Private Trading | Feis Options) noted that not only has membership increased, but so has retention (to 88%!).
Many members availed themselves of the 20 seconds for 20 dollars opportunity. Peter Lagarias (Law: Franchise | Lagarias, Napell & Dillon) celebrated his recent return from a month in Greece and honored the Cal Bears. Jim Bradley (Insurance: Property | Retired) thanked Raymond Erickson-King (Nonprofit Management | The Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Center) and The Salvation Army for recent help with disposition of an old mattress. David Dye (Management Consulting | Retired) told us about the Rotary Zone meeting in Denver, and how other Rotarians he met asked him about our new member Terry Pickering (Financial Services | Retired). Terry, your legend precedes you! Others taking advantage of the longest 20 seconds offered were Harold Hoogasian (Retail: Florist | Hoogasian Flowers), Anita Stangl (Medical Services | Alliance for Smiles), Carlos Infante (Banking: Management | Chase Bank), Sacha Shashi (Information Technology: Consulting | Nimbus Systems), Bill Poppen (Banking: Management | MUFG Union Bank), Jianying Chen (Healthcare: Acupuncture | American Institute of Zhizhen Therapy and New Qigong), and Jim Patrick (Retail: Office Supplies | Patrick & Co.) with a comment about the Washington Huskies.
Our speaker, Leila Zia, explained quite a bit about Wikipedia and Wikimedia (the umbrella for several wiki-related projects/platforms). Since its founding in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to 48 million articles in 208 languages with 15 billion page views total - 10 million a month! It's become a source for "pre-research" and it is the most visited online medical source. It's much more than an online encyclopedia.
Carla Walter (Arts Therapy | Dance in the Spirit) won the door prize, a lovely book called Back to Nature, donated by Cecile Chiquette (Accounting | Fiduciary Administration).
Photos by Bill Poppen and others
Edited by Scott Plakun (Management Consulting | The Plakun Group)