|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
Friday Program Husky Bob Holert introduced our guest speaker, Vice President of Sales Dan Sullivan, from Bensussen, Deutsch, and Associates, a premier merchandise agency.
The BD&A concept is to take the image of a company like Starbucks and take it to a higher level through clever use of the brand in merchandise. Dan discussed how giants like Nike (a “shoe” company) evolved into a merchandise company where a huge share of its revenue is now merchandise not directly related to the initial mission, like hats, T-shirts, and various sporting attire and equipment. BD&A is not only successful with its clients, it is successful with its employees. The company prides itself on a high-energy image, where employees are motivated to come to work and serve the customer. The company has been named as one of the best companies in Washington to work for. For more information, visit the BD&A company website.
This week, Wayne McCaulley provided the inspirational message by informing us of the “rest of the story” — the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th verses to our National Anthem. Many are unaware that this famous patriotic song even has more than one verse. Here are the additional stanzas:
Visiting from Seattle 4 was Ross Pinkerton. Ross was here to plug the District 5030 “Family Rotary Day,” from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on June 24th at the Seattle Center. It counts as an official make-up.
Nick has graduated early and is currently working full time at the QFC in Newcastle. He plans to earn his associate’s degree at BCC and then transfer to a college in California to complete his bachelor’s degree in a field related to medicine. He is motivated to work in that field because of the impact that cancer has had in his own family. Nick’s performance at school not only earned him the BBRC Student of the Month award; he also earned the Eastside Academy’s Student of the Year Award.
Mini-Club Assemblies John Martinka summarized our international endeavors for the year, with the highlight of the trip to Turkey for the “Computers for the World” effort. Despite the extreme bureaucracy they encountered, the computers and networks they provided will make a huge difference to the recipient schools. John recounted to the club the utmost love and admiration they received from the Turkish children, the host families and the schools for their efforts. Mike Ralph discussed the Youth Exchange program. This program has two major elements. First is the one that has become most familiar to our club — the type where we host a high school student for an entire academic year. As we all know, this year many factors combined to prevent us from hosting a student, but we hope to team with other clubs in the near future to resume that element of the program. The second piece of the exchange program is the summer program, where an American student visits a family abroad for four weeks, and then the student’s family hosts the foreign family’s student in the US for four weeks. The committee is currently looking for candidates for next year. This year, the district is hosting a student who is traveling to France. Of course, an incredible accomplishment of the International Service Committee is the GSE team efforts that are still going on (as we can all see by the daily deluge of updates from Sayoko in Japan). The list of accomplishments of I.S. is simply too long to recount in detail here, but other projects include wheelchairs in a teaming effort with Mercer Island Rotary; a landmines project in SE Asia; and a developing water project for an island village in Africa. The energies of our Community Service committees under the leadership of Curtis have produced results that are nothing short of amazing.
GSE Team Travel Log From Sayoko 05.13.07-05.15.07 05.17.07-Part 1 It was an incredible day. Even after I finished writing a daily report, I cannot believe what happened today. Your GSE team made a presentation to First Lady of Japan! We were scheduled to visit the Toda West Rotary Club today. Ever since we made a presentation at the district conference, the club had been thinking about inviting someone notable to their club for us to meet. They invited the mayor of Toda city, however, they knew we had already met the prefectural governor and three mayors. One of the members of the Toda West Rotary Club, Mr. Kimihito Itoh, happened to have known First Lady Akie Abe since childhood. It was a long shot, but he decided to invite her to a club meeting, as he believed that the D5030 GSE team’s presentation carried an important message which she may be interested in. Please read the report and join in our excitement. Click here to read the full report (PDF). 05.17.07-Part 2 05.18.07 After our meeting, they gave us a tour of the facility. That is where we became a millionaire for 2 seconds. We each held one million dollars’ worth Japanese yen in our arms. It is the real thing. 05.21.07 Thank you for receiving our GSE reports for the last four weeks. Thank you also for your moral support. This is probably the last report I can send before we leave Japan. Tomorrow, we will visit one more Rotary club and make our last presentation which has become somewhat popular in District 2770. In the evening, we will attend the farewell party where we will see a lot of Rotarians and their families whom we have met in the last four weeks. Four weeks was long and short at the same time. As team leader, I have learned so much from this exchange. I only hope that team members’ experience was just as rich and rewarding as mine. I am very grateful for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which Rotary gave me. I look forward to seeing you soon. Click here to see the full report (PDF). See all the photos from Sayoko in the weekly slideshow.
Be Careful What You Ask For Lawyers should never ask a Mississippi grandma a question if they aren't prepared for the answer. In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know me?" She responded, "Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a young boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you." The lawyer was stunned! Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, "Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?" She again replied, "Why, yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him." The defense attorney almost died. The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said, "If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I'll send you to the electric chair."
|
|
||||||||||||
BD&A started in the late 80’s in a garage producing T-shirts with licensed logos. It has evolved into an industry leader in merchandise marketing. They combine branding with products in a way that leverages a company’s image to enhance brand loyalty and create greater long-term revenues. 
Breakfast at Overlake 
David Bolson made the introductions of visiting Rotarians and guests. First up was Siripim Hgamhatai, a guest of Steve Vincent, who came all the way from Thailand. She exchanged the traditional club flags with President Jim. 
The event will feature the Seattle All-City Marching Band, the Seattle Cascades Drum and Bugle Corps, the NW Region Navy Band, and Blue Thunder from the Seahawks. Jazz sax player Marion Meadows and other prominent musicians will also entertain. There will be special coordination with the Seattle Center, the Space Needle, EMP, and other facilities. If you are interested in more details, see the District Website at 
Student of the Month from Eastside Academy: Nick Trostle 
It is the time of year for the club’s various avenues of service to present their results from the 2006-2007 Rotary year to the club. As we have done in recent years, we are providing a short presentation each week for the next several weeks. First in the barrel was International Service Director Curtis Cummings with his crew. 
New Paul Harris Fellows
District Leadership Assembly: BBRC Leads the Way!
It has been 18 days since we left Seattle. We hit the district conference as soon as we arrived and the schedule for the week of May 7th was very hard. On May 13th, we said good-bye to our third host families and met our new host families. We handed all our suitcases to the new host families and got on a bus which was going to take us and the GSE Committee members to a resort in Aizu, two prefectures away from Saitama. 
May 17th was an incredible day. This is Part 2, the lighter side of the incredible day. 
