NEXT MEETING: July 31, 2015

Why Are There Stars?

Steven Stahler is an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley. Raised in Maryland, he attended graduate school at Berkeley in physics. He was a professor at MIT before returning to the Bay Area in 1992. His research centers on the problem of star formation, which he has attacked from many different perspectives. He is the author, along with Francesco Palla, of The Formation of Stars (Wiley, 2004), the first comprehensive text in this field. Steve especially enjoys the esthetic aspect of his research, which he tries to convey in his public talks and articles. Not coincidentally, he is also an accomplished artist. For more information, and a sampling of recent sketches, visit his web page at the University.

MEETING OF July 24, 2015

Welcome

Prez Alan Blavins called the meeting to order at Jennifer and Todd’s and asked Mayor Tom Butt to lead us in the Pledge. Prez Alan asked for a silent prayer and Sgt-at-Arms Sid Chauvin offered this thought, “Most employment forms ask who to call in case of emergency…I think you should answer “a good doctor!”

Visiting Rotarians and Guests

Alan Baer had with him his children Stephanie and James. Karen Basting, from BART, was also present as a guest of our Speaker.

Special Events

Patricia “Patty” Canessa, sponsored by Your Scribe, was formally inducted into the Richmond Rotary Club. Patty is the Public Affairs Director for Chevron Richmond Refinery. Welcome Patty!

Announcements

•    Pam Jones announced that “Rotary Day at the Races” (Golden Gate Fields) will be on November 21 and tickets are available for $40. Only way to reserve your spot is to pay for it. This event usually sells out so get your money in ASAP.
•    David Brown announced that our Club has submitted and received a District Grant for almost $10,000 for our “Transform a Block” project in Parchester Village. In conjunction with the City of Richmond, we will be installing motion detectors, CO detectors, smoke alarms, and trees as well as providing dumpsters to haul away debris. Stay tuned for more details.

Recognitions

Happy and Sad Dollars

Norm’s Nonsense

PROGRAM

Stacey Street introduced our speaker Zakhary Mallett, BART Director for District 7. Zakhary was elected in 2012 at the youthful age of 25. He has a BA in Urban Studies from Stanford then came across the Bay and received an Masters in City Planning from Cal. District 7 includes Richmond and also many other cities including Albany and parts of Oakland and San Francisco.

Zakhary gave some history about BART which opened in the early 70’s with about 40,000 riders compared to the 450,000 riders today. One of the major issues BART is facing, not unlike other public agencies, is the $5 billion it has in unfunded capital project needs. BART’s trains are some of the oldest cars being used in the nation. Zakhary is hoping that BART will be able to successfully pass a Bond measure in 2016. He did indicate that BART fares do cover 70-75% of operational costs which is very good.

NEXT MEETING: July 24, 2015
Note new meeting location for Friday: Café Soleil, El Sobrante

Better BART, Better Bay Area

BART Director Zakhary Mallett will speak about Better BART, the agency’s effort to renew, rebuild and reinvest in the system to ensure safety, improve reliability, and keep traffic moving and business booming in the Bay Area into the future. BART operates the oldest big city fleet of train cars in the country. It’s time to replace the train cars, most of which are nearing the end of their useful lives.

BART has identified a significant amount of funding for replacement of train cars, computer control systems, and the construction of a maintenance complex in Hayward. However, about $4.8 billion is still needed to fund capital projects over the next 30 years.

MEETING OF March 17, 2015

Welcome

Club President Alan Blavins called the meeting to order at the Richmond Country Club and Tom Waller led the pledge of allegiance. Alan asked for a moment of silence for freedom, peace, and justice on earth. Sid Chauvin provided this thought for the day: The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way (according to Dale Carnegie).

Visiting Rotarians and Guests

Mark Porter was visiting from Solano Sunset Rotary Club in Vallejo. Mark brought two guests, Jason Maddox and Jamie Abitia, both realtors from the local area who are scouting out Rotary Clubs to join.

Announcements

• On Friday, July 24, Richmond Rotary will meet at Café Soleil, 3550 San Pablo Dam Road, El Sobrante (near the intersection of El Portal Drive and San Pablo Dam Road). Club meetings will resume at the Richmond Country Club on Friday, July 31.
• Stacey Street provided a reminder on behalf of Menbere Aklilu that the “Grateful for Grapes” fundraising event will take place this Thursday, July 23, from 4pm to 7pm at Salute restaurant. Click here to learn more. Menbe hopes all Richmond Rotarians will at least stop by for a glass of wine.
• Alan Blavins acknowledged and thanked Nick Despota for all his fine work with the Richmond Rotary web site and the weekly Flywheel.

Recognitions

Happy and Sad Dollars

Norm’s Nonsense

PROGRAM

Opportunity for all: Blazing a new trail in solving poverty

Stacey Street introduced Mariana Moore, Executive Director of “Ensuring Opportunity”, which is the newly formed campaign to cut poverty in Contra Costa County.

Currently headquartered at the Richmond Community Foundation offices, Ensuring Opportunity is designed to be a heavily collaborative initiative that engages elected officials, city and county leaders, various existing agencies, non-profit providers, the business community, organized labor, and faith-based organizations in a “big tent” effort to address the root causes of poverty.

According to Mariana, a Richmond native with extensive experience in this type of work, the 15-member leadership team will initially put an emphasis on developing a policy platform to garner wide-area support, strengthen partnerships, and guide endorsements. There are six campaign focus areas: Economic Security, Food Security, Health Security, Housing Security, Education, and Safety.

To learn more about this important work and to possibly get involved, check out the Ensuring Opportunity web site.

NEXT MEETING: July 17, 2015

Opportunity for all: How Contra Costa is blazing a new trail in solving poverty

With increasing national concern about the growing income gap, there is much recent news coverage about minimum wage increases and other strategies to reduce poverty in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. In Contra Costa, a collaborative new initiative is engaging elected officials, city and county leaders, nonprofit service providers, the business community, labor and faith-based organizations in a “big tent” effort to address the root causes of poverty. Mariana Moore, the new Director of the Ensuring Opportunity Campaign to Cut Poverty in Contra Costa, will discuss the campaign’s structure, goals, current activities and early successes, and share how Rotary members can be part of the ongoing conversation on one of the most important issues facing our community.

MEETING OF July 10, 2015

Welcome

President Alan called the meeting to order and asked Menbere Aklilu to lead the Pledge of Allegiance.  He asked recently demoted Stoney to lead grace, who asked for a silent prayer for freedom, peace, and justice on Earth. Sid’s thought for the day: If we all did things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves (a quote from Thomas Edison).

President Alan also had some “new President” remarks, to kick off his tenure on an auspicious note. He said that with old age comes wisdom, but also, unfortunately, forgetfulness, so… he can’t remember the bloody wisdom! But he does remember that Rotary is not only about service, but about fellowship and camaraderie, and he really wants the club to live up to its reputation as the “Friendly Richmond Rotary” in the coming year.  He encouraged everyone to participate in (and invite prospective and new members to) all the great events this year: the fishing derby, the Halloween event (led by Mark Howe), the holiday auction AND the members holiday event, and many more.  And in the spirit of fellowship (and showing what a generous guy he is), Alan added that his gift to each member for showing up on his first day was a glass of wine, on the table…but just for this week!

Visiting Rotarians and Guests

• The only guest was Andy Santamaria, a guest of the speaker (though Sid pointed out that Rafael Madrigal is almost a “visiting Rotarian”…).

Sunshine Report

• In Bill Koziol’s absence, President Alan discussed a message he had received from Ralph Hill by phone.  He had hoped to make it to Alan’s first meeting as President and wished him well in his presidency.  Alan was greatly touched by his kind message, and noted that he hadn’t known him at all before Rotary, but Ralph is now a dear friend, which is really what Rotary is all about!  Joe Bagley added that he had also talked to Ralph who said “Hi” to everyone at the Club.
• We learned that Betty Hardison (wife of Don Hardison and Jan Brown’s mother), was doing much better.

Announcements

• President Alan Blavins (overseeing his first meeting in his new role!) let everyone know that he had put the slide show running during lunch together to demonstrate all the amazing programs and events Richmond Rotary led and participated in during the past year. Thanks, Alan – it was a terrific overview!
• Menbere Aklilu had two announcements: First, to start raising funds for her Thanksgiving Day event for Veterans at Salute, she would be holding an event at the restaurant on July 23rd from 5 to 7 pm called “Grateful for Grapes.”  There is no charge, just come and enjoy some delicious wines, great food and wonderful company, and hopefully make a donation to help the event. Visit http://salutemarinabay.com/uncategorized/grateful-for-grapes for more info. Menbe also thanked everyone for sending Mike Barrington, Rotary Club of Concord, to her after he visited Richmond Rotary seeking support for a school project in Ethiopia for teenage girls who have been physically or sexually abused. It turns out that the village where the school is located is the same village where Menbe’s grew up and in which her mother owned a hotel, which was passed on to Menbe. With the approval of her siblings who evidently shared in its ownership, Menbe will donate the hotel for conversion into the new school.  More than a coincidence Menbe said, it is a miracle. She said she feels blessed to be part of Rotary, which, by making the initial connections, helped make this wonderful event happen!
• Mark Howe reminded everyone that the BBQ at his house, featuring delicious BBQ prepared by Stoney Stonework, was taking place Saturday (the next day), 7/18 at 3 PM!  He added that Richard Alexander was planning on bringing his yacht and mooring it on Mark’s dock, for some extra fun!
• Sid Chauvin announced that he is unable to attend Bill Koziol’s Pub Crawl, offered at the Holiday Auction, since he’ll be recovering from surgery, so offered his seat on the bus to whomever is interested.

Recognitions

Happy and Sad Dollars

Norm’s Nonsense

PROGRAM

Social Media: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Stacey Street introduced Jason Hanson, Digital Marketing Manager for The Light Digital in Richmond.  Stacey read the bio Jason had prepared for her, which was personal, humorous, and not just filled with facts, since he practices what he preaches when it comes to marketing. Jason has worked with both for profit and nonprofit companies, using ideas and words to help sell products as varied as life insurance, smoothies, pregnancy tests, votes, financial advisory services, cars and others, and to get donations of  money, blood and organs.  Jason is passionate about helping small businesses and nonprofits get back to the basics of marketing and advertising – what we need to say, where we need to say it, and how it should be said.

Jason gave a humorous and thoughtful presentation entitled Social Media: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, focusing on what to expect today, specifically what social media can and can’t do. He started with the main proposition of all marketing: it’s a funnel that starts with hooking into emotion/heart, next appeals to intellect with facts and numbers and ultimately earns trust and respect. However, though all marketing works this way, and traditional media isn’t yet dead, we now live in a very distracted society, and social media is key since people are spending more screen time than ever.  In fact, he shared the startling statistic that the average person spends 7 hours per day using apps on their mobile phones!

Social media can: 1) Raise awareness, especially about a specific organization or cause; 2) Build relationships and 3) Build a business, using the marketing funnel above. It can not 1) sell (only), since it is more about awareness and relationships 2) Replace everything – you need other forms of marketing and media and 3) Be free – it definitely costs to set up and maintain. He gave many examples and humorous anecdotes demonstrating what works and what doesn’t, and answered some specific questions about social media, including the increasing use of video beyond YouTube and how to make Twitter work for your company.