|
||||||||||||||
Vol. 18, No. 45, MAY 8, 2006 |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
The Friday Program:
Bob Mutchler is a fourth generation Northern California piano technician who joined the North Sacramento Rotary Club in 1970. He’s racked up 36 years of perfect attendance. His Rotary career includes many positions in his home district of 5180. Bob is the current president of his home club and a multi Paul Harris Fellow and major donor to The Rotary Foundation
Chris Ballard gave the invocation and led the pledge to the flag. Elena Howell greeted a group of visiting Rotarians, plus a great delegation of visiting motorcycle riders! The Get Well Group Bob Moloney looked great as he attended Friday’s Cinco de Mayo celebration. Coming off his recent hip replacement surgery, Bob has made rapid strides as well. A Report to the Membership: Mission, Vision & Values
With President-elect Jim Zidar chairing this special committee, we have gathered input from the Retreat and held two 2-hour sessions toward fulfilling our goal of creating our MVV statements,” reported Tom. He said the draft of the values is finished, with the group now working on the mission and vision statements. The committee intends to complete its work by the Rotating the Wheels dinner on June 30th, when the statements will be unveiled. “We will continue to solicit input from any member who wishes to provide additional thoughts. We hope you’ll watch the pages of Reveille for updates on our progress,” Mr. Smith said. • • • Click on the link below to read the minutes from the first two meetings of the Values, Mission and Vision Committee. the Committee will have this report included in the Reveille each week so that all who are interested can read, react and respond to what has been done to date. If you have any questions or comments, please contact contact Jim Zidar or Tom Smith. Minutes from the April 19 & May 2 Meetings The next meeting of the committee is scheduled for Tuesday, May 16th. Keeping your attendance up is a big factor in retention in Rotary. Members who attend more meetings have a higher level of involvement. Involvement means value. And value means receiving something for your effort. What you get is a greater appreciation of what Rotary is all about and how important your role in the club is. That’s called Retention, something the BBRC is mighty interested in. If the club can retain its membership, year after year, a more engaged club you will have. We’d all agree that the BBRC is engaged, retention of the current membership is always a concern. Here’s an interesting statistic: of the 45 members who have 100% attendance this year, 32 of them have 10 or more make-ups. The balance of those having 100% have less than ten make-ups, but this group includes a half-dozen of our newest members, who haven’t been with us long enough to garner a batch of make-ups. What this reveals is that a major key to good attendance is a mixture of regular attendance and make-ups. Hmmmm ... that’s not as radical as it seems! In fact, it makes perfect sense. Club Service I director Wendi Fischer rolled out a playful bunch of committee chairs to give a report on what this important area of Rotary has been doing these past several months. The Program Committee, represented by Steve Goldfarb, Roger Allington, and Tim Leah, gave an example of how the committee functions. That’s why we have so many Hollywood starlets giving BBRC programs. Public Relations Committee Chair Jenny Andrews gave an impromptu news conference with Steve Szirmai and Mike Ralph, asking silly questions about Angelina Jolie. Information Services Committee featured Chairman John Mix leading Bob Moloney with a walk around the block ... er ... Sponge Bob. Jim Kindsvater tried to steer the conversation by taking great pictures, but the report made no sense. Oh, Information Services publishes the Reveille. Fellowship was represented by none other than Chairperson Sayoko Kuwahara, who had some great script readers explaining how their committee works. PLEASE NOTE: TO VIEW PHOTOS IN A LARGER FORMAT, CLICK ON THE LINK AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE THAT SAYS "CLICK HERE TO VIEW ORIGINAL PHOTOS FROM THIS MEETING." THIS IS A NEW FEATURE AVAILABLE IN THE REVEILLE EACH WEEK.
Steve Luplow was called forward, ostensibly for shaving off his mustache. But, what to our wondering eyes should appear but a very interesting Fine Free Badge displayed by Luplow! Where he got it nobody knows, but Ballard was taken aback and pushed into speechlessness. Luplow cried out, “Stick it to the Man!” and left no money behind. John Martinka was commended for the way he was portrayed in an article written about him in a local publication. John said all the right things (Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club mentioned a couple of times) and was wearing his pin for the pictures. When Jenny was approached to consider paying a fine since Martinka was infringing on her PR territory, she nominated him for Chair! And, an extensive and expensive layout touting the activities of the YMCA caught the attention of a rat, who ratted on Rotarian Scott Sadler. This rat, however, said that Scott should be “fine free, since he represents that fine organization, YMCA.” So be it. Lots of laughs, not much money ... ‘cept for Frank! The Friday Program: An aura of excitement hovered over Glendale Friday morning as the BBRC celebrated Cinco de Mayo with an 11-piece Mariachi Band (count ‘em!) and more than a dozen special guests accompanying “Motorcycle” Bob Mutchler. Steve Lingenbrink, himself a motorbike enthusiast, had the pleasure of introducing Motorcycle Bob. Bob Mutchler is a fourth generation Northern California piano technician who joined the North Sacramento Rotary Club in 1970. He’s racked up 36 years of perfect attendance. His Rotary career includes many positions in his home district of 5180. Bob is the current president of his home club and a multi Paul Harris Fellow and major donor to The Rotary Foundation
He challenged his audience with a question: “How many of you have saved a life?” A few hands went up. “How many of you have contributed to the Rotary Foundation?” Almost all the hands when up. “You have saved many lives when you learn that a dose of polio vaccine costs 55 cents. Yes, you have saved a life.” In 1985, Rotary International voted to bring the issue of Polio eradication into a higher awareness throughout the world. Rotary joined the World Health Organization (WHO) to jump start a program called PolioPlus. The goal was to immunize children in countries still fighting the disease, which in 1985 amounted to over half of the countries in the world. Motorcycle Bob described how PolioPlus took off: “As an organization, Rotary told WHO we would raise $120 million. We told them, ‘We’re the oldest and largest service club who can open doors you can’t.’ At the end of the first campaign, Rotarians had more than doubled the goal ... $247 million was actually raised. There is only one service club with two representatives at the United Nations. You belong to it. To date, we have overseen the immunization of 2 billion children, raised over $600 million. We’re not done yet.”
Twenty-one years ago, Bob Mutchler got very weak, had trouble breathing. He went to the doctor, who diagnosed him having Post-Polio Syndrome. The doctor said he would slowly lose his ability to walk and would be in a wheelchair in a couple of years. “I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I sought another doctor’s opinion. It was the same. And another. And a fourth. Each said I was going to be like the crawlers.” Bob continued, “My health went downhill, and I was feeling sorry for myself. In the depths of despair, I finally said I can’t do this anymore as the doctors were telling me to do nothing that would stress my body. That’s when I went out and bought me a motorcycle! About the same time, I joined Rotary and began doing 1000-mile rides in 24 hours. PolioPlus came along and I was the perfect spokesperson, with a chip on my shoulder.” Bob said he’d been “riding for drug abuse prevention and other charities, so why not polio? I thought we could ride to each state capitol ... not just the city, but ride right into each state capitol building. We proposed to do this in 30 days ... all 50 states on behalf of PolioPlus. We did the ride in 27 days and PolioPlus got a huge amount of publicity. Out of this was born ‘The Iron Butt Association.’ You ride a lot!” Mutchler introduced Patty, his sidekick, whom he credits for making all the rides so successful. She’s the organizer and does the website updates. Bob complained that all this riding was making him sore. He gave thought to hanging up his riding gear.
“While I was giving the two drops of vaccine to a small girl, I felt a tug at my leg. Here was a young boy, probably 12 years old, looking up at me with big, brown eyes. He said ‘Thank you, mister, for saving my sister.’ This boy was a crawler. He’d somehow brought his sister to this immunization day. With tears welling up in my eyes, I asked myself, what would I give to go back in time and give this boy the vaccine? The answer was, ‘I’m going to push harder than ever to eliminate polio. I’m going to continue to ride.’” At this point in the program, Motorcycle Bob paused to honor “a very special person. This man was never a Rotarian, but was an active volunteer of the motorcycle rides since 1999. Ron Smith was the man, and he was a pillar of strength for our rides. Ron was into charity work and loved riding a motorcycle late in life. He was a great man who gave a lot of advice to me and our biking friends.” Bob then introduced Ron Smith’s widow and two daughters, who were presented with a Paul Harris Fellowship, signifying at least $1000 donation to the Rotary Foundation. In Ron Smith’s name, another $6000 was contributed to TRF from the rider community. As Bob put it, “A thousand dollars for a Paul Harris will buy 2000 doses of vaccine.” Mrs. Smith and her daughters received a standing ovation. The long distance rider community is a group that exists all over the world. They are the people who support the motorcycle rides for PolioPlus. As Bob explains, “They will drop whatever they’re doing to help make the ride a success.”
That’s leveling the playing field!” Bob said, “Let’s finish what we started. Let’s keep immunizing our kids and finally eradicate polio. We can do it!” To a standing ovation, Motorcycle Bob received the BBRC’s Certificate for a book to be donated in his name to the King County Library’s Ready-to-Read program. “Thank goodness,” Bob said. “It isn’t a gold pen!” Apparently, Rotary clubs across the country give out gold pens to their speakers! Units of Measure 1. Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter = Eskimo Pi 2. 2000 pounds of Chinese soup = Won ton 3. 1 millionth of a mouthwash = 1 microscope 4. Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement = 1 bananosecond 5. Weight an evangelist carries with God = 1 billigram 6. Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour = Knotfurlong 7. 365.25 days of drinking low calorie beer = 1 Lite year 8. 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling 9. Half a large intestine = 1 semicolon 10. 1,000,000 aches = 1 megahurtz 11. Basic unit of laryngitis = 1 hoarsepower 12. Shortest distance between two jokes = a straight line 13. 453.6 graham crackers = 1 pound cake 14. 1 million microphones = 1 megaphone 15. 1 million bicycles = 1 megacycles 16. 365.25 days = 1 unicycle 17. 2000 mockingbirds = two kilomockingbirds 18. 10 cards = 1 decacard 19. 52 cards = 1 deckacard 20. 1 kilogram of falling figs = 1 fig Newton 21. 1000 grams of wet socks = 1 literhosen 22. 1 millionth of a fish = 1 microfiche 23. 1 trillion pins = 1 terrapin 24. 10 rations = 1 decaration 25. 100 rations = 1 C-ration 26. 2 monograms = 1 diagram 27. 8 nickels = 2 paradigms 28. 2.4 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital = 1 I.V. League |
Our friend Bill stopped by to hype the annual District Leadership Assembly, which is set for Saturday, May 20, from 7:30AM to Noon at Bellevue Community College. “You get a bigger picture about Rotary when attending this excellent assembly,” said Bill. “Everyone in the club will benefit from this leadership forum.” AG Bill urges Board members and especially committee chairs to attend.
Friday Potpourri
A Mini-Club Assembly
