Coral Gables RotaryGram: Vol. 66 No. 18 Notes from the Podium

President's Time

President Debbie thanked everyone who helped to make the first Gables Bike Day a roaring success. In addition to the loyal contingent of Rotarians who helped, she had 80 volunteers, mostly from Coral Gables High and Gulliver. Terry Long won a Raffle Prize for a lunch. Aaron Glasser - who stayed to work all day - was awarded a gift certificate as Volunteer of the Day ... so did the two Andreas ... but they said they were just there tasting vodka!

If you haven't signed up for the IKF Halloween Party on Monday, do so now. We throw a party for the children who are stuck at Jackson for major surgery and treatment - their stay is taken care of by the International Kids Fund. Wear a costume and come an play with the kids for a couple of hours on Monday. You'll be glad you did.

We will be serving Thanksgiving Dinner at the Community Partnership for the Homeless beginning at 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning. Be sure to sign up early as this is one of our favorite and traditional Thanksgiving service projects.

8TH ANNUAL ROTARY GOLF CLASSIC - CALL FOR GOLFERS

Chris Morrison reminded everyone that next Thursday is our Golf Tournament at The Biltmore beginning at 8 a.m. We have lots of sponsors, but we need more golfers. Why not sign up for a foursome? Or invite some folks from work to come out and play. It's a terrific day with lots to do. The food (breakfast and lunch) and the drinks are all included in the $150 registration fee. And the proceeds go to our own Club Foundation to help fund so many of our worthy projects.

Determined and forceful, jealous and obstinate pretty much describes Scorpio natives like Dick Bullman who celebrates his birthday today, and Bob Schreiber who parties tomorrow. Happy Birthday Boys!

Lots of Rotary Anniversaries this week. Terry Long celebrates 16 years; Don Slesnick, 21 years; Ron Shuffield, 27 years and Dar Airan, 34 years. Congratulations and thanks for all your years of service!

Introductions of Visitors and Guests

Sally B.

Actually Yolanda Woodbridge had the most amount of visitors and guests of anyone today. International visiting Rotarian, Patricia Pellicioli from France returned again. This time she brought her son and daughter-in-law too. Always good to see her! Yoli also brought Ralph Cabrera and Vanessa Estrada again as well. Carlos Bolado brought his lovely wife Terry. Walter Alvarez had a guest. President Debbie picked up her guest, Rafael Castellanos, at Bike Day! Mead McCabe also brought a guest today. Thanks for coming and please come back again!

Happy $$$

Diva worked hard collecting today because she is probably the happiest of them all. She became engaged on Monday! Sally B was happy to announce that there will be a 25th Birthday Party for the Caroling Competition on November 28th, hosted by the 550 Building and YW Associates. Tickets are $25 and proceeds are split between Caroling and Where Every Child Is A Star Foundation. Carlos Bolado was ecstatic to announce that he and Terry have just become grandparents. His name is Santiago - he's three days old and lives with his parents in Clearwater. Miki Speijers is happy to be celebrating her 25th Wedding Anniversary on Halloween. Mead McCabe is happy that his friend Sanford has proposed to Diva and now has such a great fiancee. Chris Morrison attended his 40th college reunion at Stanford last week. He was a little perturbed that they wouldn't let him in the locker room to recruit Andrew Luck for the Miami Dolphins. Bill Quesenberry volunteered for a golf tournament at the Micosukee golf course and they gave him a ticket for a free round of golf. He auctioned it off to cover his happy dollar and his $5 fine for the cell phone ringing. Luis Boue's phone rang too but he didn't have any more money with him. He was just happy that he will be leaving for Africa on a photo safari at 4:30 tomorrow with Dr. Randy and Terry Long. Carol Brock was happy that Dr. Roberto Perez, already a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his Alfalit contributions has just received the Presidential Citizens Medal. He asked her to thank Rotary for all they've done for him and Alfalit for these many years. Dan Scipione was enjoying himself in Disneyworld when his wife called to tell him that 10 feet of closed collapsed in their bedroom. Seems the rod was not screwed into a stud ... just into the drywall. Chris Tyson was happy to have seen snow in Switzerland last week. Happiness pays so keep on smiling!

International Service Minute

International Service Chair, Bill Quesenberry gave us a great example of the magic of Rotary. You'll recall several weeks ago our speaker was a marine who is walking through Asia to raise money for Smile Trek. Our members generously donated $430 at the meeting that day. Those funds were matched by our Foundation and we ended up with $2,100 in total. Now we've applied for a District Simplified Grant which will result in a total of $4,200 being sent to Smile Trek to repair the smiles of 18 children. Rotary is certainly an amazing organization. It makes money go far!

Working Rotarians - October 27. 2011

Greeters - Steven Spann & Rolf Frankfurter

Registration - Aaron Glasser

Collections - Pat Morris & John Porro

Head Table - Rodney Langer

Open the Meeting - Jack Witty

Invocation - Steve Magenheimer

Pledge - Miki Spiejers

Singers - Bill Quesenberry & Dan Scipione

DeWitt Law Silver Dollars - Bonnie Blaire

Given to - Greg Martini & John Wallace

Pin Drawing Gift - Rodney Lanager

Pin Drawing Winner - Felix Pardo

50/50 Raffle - Gloria Burns & Donald Trombly

50/50 Winner - Jon Arthur

4 Way Test - Jon Arthur

Today's Program

Homestead Miami Speedway NASCAR Championship Weekend presented by Matthew Becherer, President of Homestead Speedway.

Homestead Speedway, originally built by Ralph Sanchez after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, is owned by Homestead but operated by International Speedway Corp. ISC OWNS and operates 12 major tracks around the country, but only operate Homestead. A publicly traded company, they have their own television station. ISC has corporate revenues in excess of $200,000,000 annually. They pay the city of Homestead $2 million a year in rent. Many people think that the only thing held at the Speedway is the Miami Grand Prix but there are a total of 280 days of racing year round.

NASCAR is the number two spectator sport in the world They have 17 of the 20 largest events. They broadcast the races to 175 countries in 24 languages. NASCAR has been hosted in Homestead for the past 10 years and it's number 11 coming up in 2012. ISC has a radio station, Motor Racing Network and serve 21,000 media outlets. There are 350 corporate partners and most of those are local small businesses. But NASCAR also has more Fortune 500 Partners than any other sport. They have an economic impact of $250 million for Miami Dade County. Compare that to the last Superbowl held here which had an impact of $331 million - and that's only one year and maybe never again. NASCAR is EVERY YEAR.

ISC has a master plan for the Speedway. The average life of a speedway is 53 years. Homestead is 15 years old. It requires vision to stay on top in this game. The market expects you to change and provide the latest novelties for the crowds. The Speedway cost $60 million to construct. They have spent another $70 million since they took it over. And there's lots of new changes on the way. They're enlarging the entertainment area to provide for festivals, concerts and full days of entertainment to enhance the race experience. The Speedway operates like a small town including a police force, fire department, etc., for a week every year so expanding their reach isn't a problem at all.

He brought two tickets for the Ford Championship Weekend Dan Scipione auctioned them off. The winner was Fred Baddour. The proceeds went to our Club's Foundation.

NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAM: 8TH ANNUAL ROTARY GOLF CLASSIC AT THE BILTMORE HOTEL. BE SURE TO COME TO THE BILTMORE AND NOT TO THE COUNTRY CLUB NEXT WEEK. AT 1:30 YOU GET TO WATCH THE GOLF BALL DROP .