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El Cerrito Rotary: The Wheel March 26, 2009
El Cerrito Rotary
The Wheel
Editors: Gary Buffon & Michael Doughtery
Week of March 26th
President Jack welcomed us to the friendly El Cerrito Rotary Club. Mark F led the flag salute and Pres Jack provided a thought for the day.
Introduction of guests and Visiting Rotarians: Sec John had Karen introduce her guest Laura who has a printing business in Berkeley.
Announcements:
ð Jack announced we have been paid for out last two outings at GGFs
ð Tracy announced the Bowl-a-thon at Albany bowl on April 4th. If you are not bowling come on out and cheer the teams on to victory
ð Jack announced the Contra Costa Civic Theatre is having a 50th Anniversary conctail party on Apr 25th. Tickets are $20 and give you a great opportunity to support the theatre.
ð Nobuko passed around the sign-up sheet for the potluck at Mike G’s house on the 18th. Be sure and get in on the fun. Mike lives in El Cerrito and just moved back to town after leaving many years ago when he lived on Mono Ave in El Cerrito.
New Member induction: Pat Toddhunter was officially inducted into El Cerrito Rotary. Pat has been one of our favorite visiting Rotarians for many years and when she retired from her business in Orinda she decided to join the Friendly Club. Jack provided the official welcome and we now have a member who has is a resident of El Cerrito and actually lives about a block from our meeting place. Welcome Pat to the “Friendly Rotary Club.”
 Pres Jack welcomes Pat to the Friendly El Cerrito Rotary Club
Happy dollars: Mark F is happy to be back to the club after his successful back surgery and all the pain that accompanied his recuperation. Welcome back Mark!!! Jim is happy for Mark’s return and promised to show how during the Sgt-at-Arms venue. Jack is $20 happy for the paint job Jim’s company did on his office building and for the clean windows Andy provided. Great doing business with Rotarians. Kathleen is happy for the Facebook page that has allowed here to chat with her brother in New York routinely and now her brother is going to visit for a week. Marty is happy his business is doing well and he has some new people that can help him provide even better customer service at his auto repair facility.
Sgt at Arms: Today Sgt Jim gave us some insights into MRC training (memory recall capability) and made sure everyone saw the flash cards, then had a chance to recall them. Bottom line; we all got to pay for the fun and games. It appears that Sgt Jim is determined to break Gary B’s record for collecting the most recognitions in recent club history. He is having fun doing it so it must be good!
Today’s Program:
Marty introduced Dr. Tansing and Rachael from the Seva Foundation. Seva, meaning service in Sanskrit and is the mission of Seva with regard to working to eliminate and prevent blindness in specific countries.
 The presentation today was focused on the work that Seva is doing in Cambodia. This country had to deal with a genocide in the 70’s which essentially wiped out the medical infrastructure in the country. Now there are nine eye doctors that deal with the entire country’s population of 14 million people. As a consequence Seva has been working in country and has established an eye clinic that does thousands of cataract surgeries to restore sight to adults and children. Seva has been working to increase the capacity of the clinic and train doctors and technicians. After some ten years there have been some significant steps made but they have essentially been small steps. Now it is time to team up with others, such as Rotary to expand this program so it can reach more people. Dr. Otis Paul is involved in this training process and we will hear from him next week about his activities.
Dr Tansing and Rachael answered numerous questions. The bottom line is that current need is for some basic equipment (microscopes) that can assist the doctors and technicians in completing more surgeries each day. The microscope that was discussed cost approximately $18K but would increase the number of surgeries by 500 per day.
This was a great presentation as it shows just how effective organizations teaming up to carry out a project can have a tremendous impact on the world. Hope you did not miss this presentation, it was great!!
Today’s Lottery Winner: Mark had his ticket pulled for a chance at winning the pot and selected cats-eye marble winning the bottle of wine. Next Week the pot is worth $170.
Genie Stone: The magic stone was won by Kathleen who will enjoy free lunches during April. Congratulations!!
Interact Corner by Gary Buffon – Rotary Advisor to Interact:
The EC Fire Dept had a lunch to acknowledge the Interact members who volunteered at the Christmas Toy program. Thanks to the ECFD for acknowledging the work of the fantastic young folks in the El Cerrito High School Interact club.
Thought for Week:
If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.
--Robert South
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