As some of you may know, my loving and lovely wife, Peggy, has been to only a few Rotary events over the past year due to her complex and difficult schedule. On February 13th she found her schedule clear, and she joined me for Emergency Services Day. Peggy was blown away by the event! Coming from a naval family, she knows the kind of people being honored, but she told me that this event was different. It was truly moving! Of course that is due to the nature of the event: celebrating and honoring professionals who have made a difference in our community. But it was more than that.
Every aspect of the meeting was carefully thought out, carefully managed, and focused on sharing what one service chief said was the commonality with Rotary: Service Above Self. The feeling of pride and respect in the room was tangible. These are people who, every day, put themselves out to do what is right for our City and for the Bay Area. As was clear from the statements by the honorees, they do not expect acknowledgment, even when they do things outside their “job” and when they are not wearing a uniform. So it is important to thank them as we do every Emergency Services Day.
And it is important to thank you, Rotary Club members, for the work you do to improve our community. The late nights, the meetings, the travel, the conference calls, and the projects themselves are all demonstrations of the commitment the members of our Club have to making the world a better place. Many times it is unsung. Too often it is not recognized. This month alone Rotarians have met numerous times to plan for Emergency Services Day, put on New and Prospective Member evening events, deliver dictionaries to schools around the City, meet as committee or board members, and prepare for numerous events planned for future months. Thank you!
Like the profound impact Emergency Services Day had on the audience and service professionals, let me say clearly that you are appreciated and the work you do is valued and important. Thank you for your service. Thank you for being a member of our Rotary Club!
Rotarian of the Month: Dora Dye (Education; City College of San Francisco). When you’re looking to organize a project or activity, ask for help from Dora! Over the past 18 months, Dora has made tremendous contributions to many aspects of our Club. At the front desk on a typical Tuesday, Dora has helped structure the check-in process, even to the point where she is the first line of contact with the hotel on expected attendance. Behind the scenes, Dora is instrumental in putting out our weekly calendar and our monthly newsletter, Grindings. Every event the Club undertakes has some aspect that is coordinated or reviewed by Dora. For her tireless dedication to our Club, we honor Dora as January 2018’s Rotarian of the Month!
Great Luncheon Programs:
Paul Tasner, PulpWorks. It was a treat to have Paul share his experience of becoming an entrepreneur in his seventies, and the trials he went through to create a powerful company that is helping address one of the most difficult problems in our environment: plastic waste.
Lilian Tsi-Stielstra (Insurance Services; Wells Fargo Advisors) shared the experiences she and her husband Scott Stielstra (also in attendance) had walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain. This was an especially inspiring feat, since Lilian had suffered a stroke just a few years before undertaking this challenging journey. Way to go, Lilian!
Emergency Services Day. What a great event! The honorees were genuine, their stories moving, and the services’ brass complimentary of every aspect of the luncheon. The logistics, thanks to good planning and excellent execution, were spotless. Past President Laine Hendricks (Public Relations; County of Marin) served as our Emcee for the day - her orchestration and personal touch had a deep impact on the honorees, their bosses, and the audience.
In addition to the honorees and their families and friends, we were joined by many senior officers from all of the First Responder organizations we recognized. With about 150 attendees, this was one of the most well-attended Rotary events in recent history.
The committee that put this event on, led by President-Elect Rhonda Poppen (Grant Writing; GRANTdog), can rightfully say that they have taken this annual event to a whole new level of excellence. One of the senior service members told us, “I have been to a lot of these events, and this is the best organized and most enjoyable.” Thank you all for a wonderful experience!
Events:
Super Bowl Party at the home of Lilian Tsi-Stielstra and Scott Stielstra. It was a fabulous affair. Scott and Lillian are consummate hosts and the extent of drinks and edibles, especially homemade delicacies, made the game even more fun. Thank you for hosting.
New and Prospective Member Cocktails. Membership VP Dan Joraanstad (Financial Management; Retired) organized a special evening at Youth Services VP Lynn Luckow’s (Development; LikeMinded.org) office on Post Street. The place was filled to bursting with potential members chatting with members and asking the questions to better understand Rotary and our Club. It was a fun and informative evening. Thank you, Lynn, for hosting and Dan for organizing the event!
Service Above Self: Thank you to the many Club members and friends who have delivered dictionaries to third graders in San Francisco elementary schools in recent months:
Warren Grawemeyer (Soft Drink Manufacturing; Retired): 44 dictionaries at Marshall
Mark Calender (Insurance Broker; Calender-Robinson): 63 dictionaries at Leonard Flynn
Scott Plakun (Management Consulting; The Plakun Group), Lilian Tsi-Stielstra, and Scott Stielstra: 61 dictionaries at Daniel Webster
Peter Logan (Law - General Practice; Peter Logan Law Offices) and Kevin Leong (Development - Colleges and Universities; University of San Francisco): 62 dictionaries at Tenderloin
Casey Blair (Foreign Equity Trading; Feis Options) and Luis Moran (Real Estate Sales; Coldwell Banker): 65 dictionaries at Fairmount
That adds up to 295 dictionaries delivered to third graders in five local schools so far this Rotary year, with more in process.
It’s that time of year when the Board of Directors has its annual retreat, and we set goals. As Membership Director, I am assessing what we can hope to achieve in 2018-2019. But what will you achieve in the membership category in the year ahead? We can never lose sight of the shared responsibility among all Club members in membership growth. Without you asking those you know and respect to come to a meeting, we can’t make much progress. It’s not just a single person who can galvanize the Club to move forward in membership growth. It’s not just a committee. It’s our shared efforts that make us succeed. And hasn’t it been a fun 12 months as the membership has grown and new and talented people have joined us?
Our Membership Contest is moving right along with two new members in the second semester both sponsored by Anita Stangl, and 2 of 3 likely new members to be inducted in March stemming from a member recommendation. In the first semester, 70% of new members were sponsored by direct invitation from you to join the Club. Your invitations to friends and work associates are what move the Club forward into the future. Remember that before the second semester comes to a close, you can have the pleasure of inviting a colleague to step up into a new world of giving back, of being a Rotarian. And maybe you can win a week in Hawaii. I’m counting on you!
Chris Davies, sponsored by Anita Stangl, is our newest member to join in February. Chris has a long history of giving back, especially regarding Alliance for Smiles and his work on a couple of missions for them. He is partially retired, although he keeps his hand in the property management business. He looks forward to being involved in many of our projects including both local and international projects. He also much admires our Four-Way Test, finding it a useful guide in times as challenging as ours. He and his wife, Diane Davies, live in the Haight Ashbury.
And in closing, I want to thank everyone in our Club for all the work you do for our membership efforts. Be sure to greet newcomers, ask them to sit with you, let them know what’s coming up, or just listen to their stories.
Sacha Shashi calls Rotary “a unique global family of people with high ethical standards and a focus on doing good community and developmental work.” He first joined the Rotary Club of Berkeley in 2010 and became a member of the Rotary Club of San Francisco in 2015, citing our “amazing legacy” as the second oldest Rotary Club in the world and our role in the founding of the United Nations. “That really raises the bar for members to get involved with something big and impactful.”
Sacha was born and grew up south of Mumbai in India, where he earned his undergraduate degree in electronics and communications. After earning a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Toledo in Ohio, he worked for a startup for two years, then became an independent consultant before starting his own company, which does technology and communications consulting in the US and India. While running his company, he earned dual MBAs in entrepreneurship at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and in finance at Columbia University in New York City. He is single, lives in the San Francisco Panhandle and has a sister in Boston and “a little bit of family” in the UK and India.
As Vice President of International Service, Sacha is attempting to apply his experience with development work to the Club’s international projects. “Many nonprofits have good intentions, but they’re focused on charity and not so much on empowerment,” he says. “To transition from charity to empowerment requires scientific rigor and a structural approach.” To that end, he enlisted the help of a couple of Berkeley professors and is focusing on making long-term commitments rather than on short-term projects. The International Committee is in the process of applying for a two-to-three-year Global Grant from The Rotary Foundation for a clean water project in a drought-prone area west of Mumbai in partnership with the Rotary Club of Jalna Midtown in Rotary District 3132. In addition to grants to Alliance for Smiles, Rotaplast, and Roots of Peace, the committee also is considering applying for a multi-year Global Grant for a day care center in Syria.
As the Club's Vice President of International Service, it's natural for Sacha to have a leading role on the committee organizing World Wide Rotary Day, which will be held on March 20 this year. This is one of our Club's most popular events, when we host a large contingent of the San Francisco Consular Corps and feature speakers who address global issues that are of special interest to the consuls who attend. This year's speaker will be Jonathan Granoff, president of the Global Security Institute.
Along with the international work, Sacha says the best thing about being a member of the Rotary Club of San Francisco is “building friendships and connecting with people, making friends with really interesting members. People are genuine and passionate.”
Michael Mustacchi, a member of our club since 2011, passed away last month after a long battle with leukemia. Here are some memories of Michael:
For several years, Michael devoted countless hours to recording the events that transpired during the RYLA camp. From the moment he arrived, he was busy capturing all aspects of the three-day leadership experience – from the newly arrived campers as they stepped off the bus to the final day, when he took all the group pictures. In his spare moments he would sift through all the photos to select and edit them on site. His keen eye would spot those photos that best displayed the excitement of the campers as they engaged in personal development, leadership, and teamwork exercises. By the afternoon the final day, he had assembled a slideshow of the camp highlights that was shown during the closing ceremony.
—David Dye
When I first started attending Club events, I noticed that Michael was always present, always warm, and always smiling. He made you feel welcomed.
—Dora Dye
Mike was a sweet, genuine person who was always willing to take the time to talk.
—Harold Hoogasian
Michael Mustacchi was in my networking group called the San Francisco Executives Association. Of course, he was in the photographer category. One very nice thing he did for me and Bob was at our second marriage, this one in the context of Gavin Newsom's City Hall when gay marriage was legal for a month...or two. He volunteered that he would like to photograph our wedding and provided us with his services at no cost. He recorded all of the wedding at City Hall in beautiful photographs that we cherish to this day. What a wonderful guy. Always smiling, never frowning.
—Dan Joraanstad
One of the speakers at one of our meetings was a specialist in networking and asked the audience to write down the names of all the “organizations” where they were members. Going around the room, Michael was at the top with over 20 clubs and groups he was a part of. This one incident was a testament to the person we all knew through various groups, because for Michael it was more than networking. It was who he was: connected all across our great city, high and low, with a smile and a warm quip. Michael was known for his generosity, his love of fun and friends, his loyalty to people and “organizations”.
In the last months of his life, Michael did what he loved: connecting with friends and bringing them closer; his incredible marriage to one incredible woman, Honey Mannix; visiting at home with old friends; showing up at a breakfast meetings; laughing and joking. This was vintage Michael Mustacchi. All of which we, his friends, will sadly miss.
—John Mathers
Michael was special to Stephanie and me. He was one of 6 people at our wedding. And while the concept of a surprise wedding was new to him, he must have liked it because he did the same thing!
I’ll remember his enthusiasm to help in the kitchen. He helped cooking at the Salvation Army for a few years - both at Harbor Light and the central kitchen - to bring lunches over to The Arc. He had so much fun being with the Rotarians and the kitchen staff of the Salvation Army that he would forget why he was there. He would wander off or get sidetracked... that was just Michael. He has the biggest heart of anyone I knew and was willing to share his skill of the perfectly-captured moment with everyone.
Enjoy the opportunity to make dinner and share it with new friends at The Arc. Rotarians are invited to join the fun at one dinner a month: come once, or make it a regular commitment! Open to family and friends who are over 18.
Club member Heidi Kuhn, Founder and CEO, Roots of Peace, and Martin Lowenstein, Executive Director of Friends of China Camp, will talk about the history and future of China Camp. It's a story with deep Rotary connections, a tale of Chinese/American friendship during times of discrimination.
Dr. Iwach a glaucoma specialist, Chair of the Board of Glaucoma Research Foundation, and Executive Director of the Glaucoma Center of San Francisco, will present some of the latest breakthroughs and innovative treatments available to keep us seeing well for a lifetime.
Join us at this service opportunity where club members and guests will stuff diaper bags with the supplies new moms need to help care for their babies. The bags will be distributed to pregnant women involved in Prenatal Classes at the Homeless Prenatal Project. Afterwards, we'll walk down the block to Mars Bar and Restaurant for food, fellowship, and fun.
Join us at one or both of the Baby Showers at the Homeless Prenatal Program where we will give expectant mothers diaper bags filled with supplies. The party for Spanish speakers starts at 10:30 AM, the party for English speakers starts at 1:00 PM.
Everyone involved in Rotary leadership should attend this annual conference to learn how to work effectively under the leadership of District Governor Elect Jayne Hulbert. This annual event is a must for all committee chairs and incoming leaders. Training registration is required before March 9, 2018. No walk-ins!
Enjoy the opportunity to make dinner and share it with new friends at The Arc. Rotarians are invited to join the fun at one dinner a month: come once, or make it a regular commitment! Open to family and friends who are over 18.
World Wide Rotary Day honors the San Francisco Consular Corps as the special guests of the Rotary Club of San Francisco. One of the most popular programs on our club's annual calendar, WWRD was founded in 1997 to recognize our club's international service activities and the support of the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. Our featured speaker this year is Consul General Lorenzo Ortona from Italy. As always, many members of the Consular Corps of San Francisco will attend as our guests.
We need club members to volunteer to serve as hosts for visiting consuls. If you are interested in hosting a consul, please contact Sacha Shashi.
Please RSVP well in advance so we can be sure to have enough seats for all who want to attend.
Rotarian of the Month: Dora Dye (Education; City College of San Francisco). When you’re looking to organize a project or activity, ask for help from Dora! Over the past 18 months, Dora has made tremendous contributions to many aspects of our Club. At the front desk on a typical Tuesday, Dora has helped structure the check-in process, even to the point where she is the first line of contact with the hotel on expected attendance. Behind the scenes, Dora is instrumental in putting out our weekly calendar and our monthly newsletter, Grindings. Every event the Club undertakes has some aspect that is coordinated or reviewed by Dora. For her tireless dedication to our Club, we honor Dora as January 2018’s Rotarian of the Month!
Service Above Self: Thank you to the many Club members and friends who have delivered dictionaries to third graders in San Francisco elementary schools in recent months:
Chris Davies, sponsored by Anita Stangl, is our newest member to join in February. Chris has a long history of giving back, especially regarding Alliance for Smiles and his work on a couple of missions for them. He is partially retired, although he keeps his hand in the property management business. He looks forward to being involved in many of our projects including both local and international projects. He also much admires our Four-Way Test, finding it a useful guide in times as challenging as ours. He and his wife, Diane Davies, live in the Haight Ashbury.
Club member Heidi Kuhn, Founder and CEO, Roots of Peace, and Martin Lowenstein, Executive Director of Friends of China Camp, will talk about the history and future of China Camp. It's a story with deep Rotary connections, a tale of Chinese/American friendship during times of discrimination.
