Contributed by Ron Leach
The meeting was begun without President Ara as he was looking for a parking. When he finally arrived, he insisted there was no parking shortage just an overabundance of cars. This parking snafu, brought PastPresBill up to the podium to declare all is well and to prove it, dialed up some thoughts for the day on his cell phone - maybe not so well.
Visiting Rotarians and Guests - They sort of all got lumped into one, so here are both - Nicole Pantelis, Chris Bartel, James Laurenz and Chris Slater and Geri Fujimoto a PDG.
Announcements - Kerri, our social chair, announced of the great Christmas/Holiday Party and Fellowship at Susan and Jerry Angels home. The date is December 21st at 6PM. This will be a pot luck with Ham and Turkey provided. Bring your pot, $10 and an unwrapped toy to donate.
Stephanie is recruiting for Christmas Caroling at Aldersly and then a gathering after to relive the memories of the year.
We once again passed the Santa Hat for a gift for our servers. Thank you all for your generosity as we collected $821!!
Birthdays or Anniversaries - None on this day. Susanne tried to get Kazoo Band leader, Paul Simmons, to rally his troops to play anyway but to no avail.
Club Anniversaries - John Rickards joined our club in 1988 and today, bid us a fond farewell as he has moved to Gualala and will be joining the club there. He promised he would be back to visit from time to time and said he would see Ron Leach in May on the annual Shasta fishing trip.
Vocational Minute - Mikol Davis gave an interesting talk on his professional journey as a clinical psychologist, studying human behavior and working with children and seniors. All this, in addition to writing many books and traveling to talk at conferences.
PastPresBill then had the floor to introduce PDG Geri Fugimoto who was present to give us some awards that were earned during Bill's year of leading us. We were presented with a certificate for being a Rotary Foundation 100% giving club. There are only 1 in 4000 club that are awarded this honor. We were also an "End Polio Now" champion Foundation club. We multiplied our contributions with a match from our club foundation which was matched by our District which was matched X 2 by the Rotary Foundation for a total of $130,000 - Wow!!! Congratulations to MSR members.
Paul Harris Fellows - Geri continued with the recognitions for our members who contributed towards their own Paul Harris Fellows this year - Mikol Davis, Gayle Peterson and Pablo.
At this point, the late Davis Shawn was in the house.
Speaker - Jonathon introduced our speaker for the day, Laurie Frugoli who has worked for 27 years in the Marin District Attorneys office. She talked about her career, first as a cop on the beat - one of very few women police and then in the District Attorneys office. She brought some videos showing that many cops really want to be helpful and are very caring people.
Raffle - David Hellman spun the wheel and won $10. This is the last meeting for the year at San Rafael Joes.
Merry Christmas, Everyone!