November 7, 2011 Spokesman
President Brandon Honcoop began the November 7, 2011 Kirkland Rotary meeting around 6:30 p.m. The Pledge of Allegiance was given by Alice Volpe. President Honcoop thanked Diana Lanspa for being the greeter, Sue Greenfeld for scribing, and Megan Nakanishi and John Pruitt for the front desk. Ernie Norehad provided an inspiration moment.
Introduction of Guests
Visiting Rotarian Stan Dickison, Past District Governor, and his wife Val. Kristina Koumaeva, Juanita HS Rotary Student of the Month, Maria Elena Abundo, Rick Rekdal (an accountant and guest of Dave DeBois) and Dr. Joseph Castleberry, President of Northwest University and prospective member.
Announcements
“Save the Date” of November 17, 2011 for a New Member Event at Hector’s.
Holiday Party of December 4, 2011 will be at 6 p.m. at Lucia’s. The cost is $50 per person. Please pay in advance.
Three families from John Muir Elementary School will be supported by our Club for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They will already be given their turkeys. We will be providing the supplemental food. More details will be forthcoming.
November is Rotary Foundation Month
Don Dicks, our Foundation Chair, indicated that this year the club goal is to have 100% participation of every Rotarian to donate to Rotary International Foundation, even if it is only $1. Last year we raised $13,000 ($3,000 more than our goal), but only had 60% participation. Don provided details of the important work of the Foundation, primarily the eradication of polio. If one contributes $100 per year, then, he or she will be considered a “sustaining” member. The Rotary board of Kirkland authorized that all contributions to the Foundation in the month of November would be matched by the Board. Thus a $100 contribution would equal $200 points towards a Paul Harris Fellowship pin.
Don then introduced Stan Dickison, Past District Governor, graduate of USC and UW, who first mentioned that Steven Sifunetes has a blog for anyone who wants to read it. Contact Bob Webb for more information about the blog. Stan then discussed the importance of the Rotary World Peace Fellowship and introduced (Maria) Elena Abundo who has applied for this fellowship from our district. We are still waiting the results to see if she has received this award.
Speaker: Elena Abundo
Elena provided us with a fascinating presentation with her life first in the Philippines. While there, she noted that she was quite outspoken in a very conservative culture. She lived with her grandma who indicated that boys and men had first priority. Luckily this inspired her to work even harder. She became her high school’s valedictorian and in 2007 she was named one of the ten “Outstanding Students of the Philippines.” She attended the World Youth Parliament where they entered into discussions about the Sudan. She represented the Philippines at the Japan-Asean Youth Leaders Summit. Her area of interest has been the media literacy, and is very concerned about the number of journalists who have been killed in the Philippines.
She next spoke of her life in the United States and her cultural shock, and gave us entertaining remarks of going to McDonalds for the first time and looking for “chicken and rice.” She applied on-line for an USN military ad, and three hours later, a USN recruiter called her up. She joined the Navy, did outstanding work, but was also an outspoken critic of military trashing of pens and paper and the amount of profanity in the Navy. She believes that reducing the amount of profanity in the Navy would actually improve recruitment and retention. Her area expertise was defense and security. She was honorably discharged and she also became a U.S. citizen.
Through her contacts, she had heard about the Rotary World Peace Fellowship and decided to become an applicant. Among the schools she has applied are the University of Bradford and the University of Queensland due to their programs in national security. Eventually, she would like to work for the US State Department.
Elena was very interesting, charming and provided us with numerous chuckles. President Honcoop told Elena that a book to John Muir Elementary School would be provided in her name.
Paul Harris Fellows
Don Dicks then presented pins to Katherine Kehrli for being 2+ Paul Harris Fellow and to Doug Carter for being a first-time Paul Harris Fellow.
Joker Pool
Joker Pool has close to $970. Chris Rusnak had the winning ticket, but only drew the 5 of Clubs and not the Joker. Meeting adjourned around 7:30 p.m.