NEXT MEETING: September 11, 2015

Building Community Police Partnerships

City of Richmond’s Crime Prevention Manager, Michelle Milam, will discuss basic crime prevention strategies, and how Richmond can effectively partner with the police through outreach, education, and social media.
Topics will include:
•    Personal Safety/ Neighborhood Watch & Business Watch
•    CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design)
•    Crime Prevention Through Social Media

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Nick Despota explained why many members didn’t receive Flywheel notification emails last week, while others were peppered with 4 or 5 duplicates. It seems that the problem is with our hosting company’s mail server— because we made no changes at all on our end. Nick reminded us that regardless of whether we receive the “Flywheel online” email, if we check the Richmond Rotary website (address you see at the top of your browser window) we’ll see that week’s updated Flywheel by Wednesday, if not earlier. At the time of this writing we have no indication that the mail server problem has been resolved.
• Saturday, November21st is Rotary Foundation Day at the Races. Jon Lawlis and Darlene are going and hope everyone will join them
• Saturday October3rd is Rotary Foundation Fun at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. Go to www.rotary5160.org for the link to purchase tickets.
• Don Lau announced that Luau at the Lau’s, the popular Holiday Auction item, will take place on Saturday, October 17^th . He also raised concern among the partying crowd that this may be the last Lau’s Luau ever. You can still add for $75 and send a check to David Brown.
• Josh Genser announced that only 4 people were able to be at the Scotch Tasting so he will hold a makeup where people who have missed over the last few years can attend. Other people can add for $250.
• Joe Bagley, Bill Koziol, Josh Surowitz and Jim Young visited Charlie Wong. Charlie and his wife were happy to receive them. The Wongs are mentally sharp. They even entertained the idea of holding an “auxiliary” Rotary meeting at their house.

 

MEETING OF September 4, 2015

Welcome

Past President Alan Baer led the meeting in Alan Blavins’ absence. David Brown led the pledge of Allegiance and George Egan asked for a moment of silence for Peace and Justice on Earth. Herb, who stood in for Sid, offered this thought for the day: “The biggest lie I can tell myself is I don’t have to write this down because I will remember it”.

Visiting Rotarians and Guests

Rotarians visiting our club on this day were Steve Kirby, David Hammer and Anne Pardee.

Our guest list included Theresa Brick (Josh Surowitz), Darlene Quenville (Jon Lawlis), Tiffany Straus (Don Lau), Tom Dean and his wife Chieko Chambers (Jim Young) and the Honorable Nobuhiro Watanbe, our speaker on this day (see below).

Recognitions and Happy and Sad Dollars

• Jon Lawlis celebrated his birthday in Canada by doing yardwork on his property. He was also happy to be back at Richmond Rotary after a long vacation
• David Brown took some time to read the article about his plane crash. On August 27^th at 2:15pm a small plane went down and was destroyed but the pilot walked away. 2 minutes later at an airport across the country another small plane went down and the pilot was killed. He and all the Richmond Rotarians are thankful to have David back safe and sound.
• Rafael Madrigal had happy $s for being back at Rotary
• Josh Genser was happy that the college football season opens up tomorrow.
• Nick had happy dollars for the birth of his second grandchild—his daughter’s daughter. He and Nel will travel to Berlin to meet the new one and “help out”. For one month. Hmm.
• Erle was happy that CAL was playing Grambling on Saturday and was looking more forward to seeing their band then the game
• Tom was happy that the rent control initiative that was supposed to go into effect was suspended
• Herb was glad to have David Brown back and presented him with three more articles about his plane crash
• Jan Brown was happy that David Brown is back and happy to see her school friend visiting her rotary club.
• Jerry Feagley was happy that the rent control ordinance was suspended.
• Visiting Rotarian Steve was happy to be visiting Richmond Rotary

PROGRAM

Japan-California Relations

Nobuhiro Watanabe, Deputy Consul General at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco spoke to Richmond Rotary about Japan-California relations. Deputy Consul General Watanabe joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1982 and has been involved in the Foreign Service for nearly thirty years. His assignments have included posting in Australian, India, Austria and the Philippines. His domestic assignments in Tokyo have included work at the Treaties Bureau and the Economic Affairs Bureau. Prior to moving to San Francisco in November 2012, Mr. Watanabe’s work focused mainly on international trade law (Economic Partnership Agreements and the World Trade Organization) with the Economic Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he served for about ten years, except for a period of overseas assignment in the Philippines.

Henry Moe, “Rotating Editor”