Rotary Club of Montecito Axis - Archive  Sep 8, 2009

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Rotary Club of Montecito

Weekly Meeting

September 15th, 2009 

It is easy to see why Peter Lance is a multiple-Emmy award winning investigative reporter and why he is provocative and tenacious.  Peter’s program highlighted  many unanswered questions about 9/11 and related Al Quaeda connections.  It was both stimulating and unsettling in the questions raised from his examination of voluminous evidence.  As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus used to say from the Hill Street stationhouse, “Be careful out there!”  The paucity of Arabic speaking analysts at the FBI is reason alone for concern.  In any event, Peter in addition to being a multiple Emmy award-winner is a multiple recipient of Montecito Rotary speaker pens and has signed multiple book plates for Cleveland School.  We appreciate his passion and dedication.  He also announced a new business venture relating to deeply researched biographical/legacy publications about individuals and organizations.

On the new business venture front, our own Gunnar Thomer in his vocational talk shared his emerging plans for Escaya, perhaps the newest business venture in Montecito.  Gunner’s business plan is still evolving and he is seeking customers and colleagues for business opportunites.  Check out his web site at www.escaya.com.  Gunnar is also working on a portable Club Directory.  He has been able to retrieve many photos of Club Members from our Club web site, but we still have a few photos to compile.  We will be circulating copy for this directory to assure current information for telephone numbers, email addresses, and affiliations.  We appreciate Gunnar’s efforts here. 

Andy Berwick has been doing some important work on the Paul Harris Fellow front, so stay tuned for more information here as Andy is coordinating this effort.

We heard from Stephanie Morris who gave us an update on the activities of our jointly sponsored Group 8 Rotaract Club.  Stephanie will be joining us for meetings periodically since she is our liaison to Rotaract.

The District Conference in Ventura is about a month away (10/23-10/25).  You can find out more details at http://www.rotarydistrict5240.org/  As noted at the meeting, there are full registrations and ala carte packages.  Call me if you’re interested.  Kurt Koenig is lining up a foursome for golf on 10/23, so please be in touch with Kurt if you’re interested in the golf aspect of the District Conference.  This meeting provides an excellent opportunity to meet interesting Rotarians throughout the District...

Deborah Schwartz visited the Roswell, Georgia Rotary Club and brought a flag.  She also noted the deferential respect accorded the Roswell Rotary President as members addressed the prez as "President Mark."  It seemed to have a nice ring to it, though it might interfere with our lively repartee, if we become too respectful of the incumbent president.

Our speaker next week is Gary Linker, a co-founder of the Pacifca Graduate Institute who is now the head of New Beginnings.  Gary will share his insights with us.

Assignments as follows:  Invocation/Flag Salute JT Turner and 50/50 Raffle Deborah Schwartz. 

Reminder that the Polo Even is slated for Sunday, 9/20/09 for those who signed up.

We need two more host families for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner during the week-end of October 9^th and 10^th.   Please contact Sheryl Barnard if you are able to host.