Thursday, September 30, 2010

Vol. 65 No. 14 Notes from the Podium


President's Time
This Week in America a Kansas City religious mission is being sued by International House of Pancakes. The International House of Prayer says they've been using the acronym "IHOP" for ten years without confusion. Problem is that the church is now serving pancake breakfasts.
And it seems that Texas ranks as number one as the state that has the most sex, including No.1 ranked city, Austin. Statistics were verified by birth rates, sales of condoms and sex toys and STD rates.

7th Annual Rotary Golf Classic is November 4th. New sponsors include, Driving Range Sponsor Fred Woodbridge. Additional Tee Sponsors have signed up including Geological & Environmental Services, Inc., Milian, Swain & Associates, Stanfill Funeral Homes and DeWitt Law. Tito Monroig, George Reeves, Guillermo Villar, Viresh Dayal and Judy Pantoja have all signed up for foursomes. Abe Horowitz and Brent Nagel along with John Wallace are individual Golfers. Call your friends and invite them to play. Maybe they'll buy a foursome too. Remember, proceeds go to the Rotary Foundation of Coral Gables and provides funds for so many worthwhile projects worldwide.
YARD SALE COMETH November 13 & 14 is the second-ever Rotary Club of Coral Gables Yard Sale. Have you visited your storage unit recently? Certainly some of that junque can be donated. Time to clean it out. Kids left for college? All that "stuff" can come to us too. Clean out their room. Make yourself a nice home office and unload the old furniture efficiently.
Schreiber & Trombly are working moving and storage. Let us know if you need a pick up or call Sally B and bring everything to the warehouse at your convenience. Remember, proceeds from this too go to our Foundation. The money helps to fund both our Community Service and International Service projects. And you don't have to open your wallet, just your garage. How easy is that?

Urbane, charming and easily influenced are traits exhibited by the average Libra. Say Happy Birthday this week to Brent Nagel on October 6th.

Past President and long time member Dar Airan celebrates 33 years in Rotary this week too. Congratulations and thanks for all those good years of service.

George Reeves is collecting for care packages for the Marine Units serving in Afghanistan during October. The Navy League supports five U.S. Marine Companies (1,500 troops) presently assigned to Helmand Province. They purchase personal items and ship them via USPS directly to the Company commanders for distribution. Each box contains $100 in personal care items and costs $12.50 to deliver. If you don't have time to purchase the items, cash will do ... the League will purchase for you and it will certainly cover the postage. Things they need include Crystal Lights powder, hand sanitizer, baby wipes, small toiletry items, movies/dvd's, gum and more.


Happy $$$$
People were really happy for the Diva today. She can Groh things without any help from HIM !! Debbie Swain made the switch from AT&T to Comcast for her office phones and expected all kinds of trouble. She was disappointed, everything worked great. Except her internet. She used Dan Scipione to fix it for her...Rotarians do great work! Gene Witherspoon is happy that his daughter turns 4 this week and her 22 and 24 year old sisters are coming home for the occasion. Chris Morrison was blowing the Stanford horn again because they're 4/0 and "really something" ... (yawn). Jon Arthur is happy to be back from Hendersonville, N.C. He's really happy that he went to our own Dr. Groh for his teeth work. Randy doesn't do root canals so he sent him to some specialist who saved him $600. Deena Bell is finally going on her honeymoon just in time for her first anniversary. She's anxious to do this right because the late Jo Burke told her you gotta do it before your first anniversary or your marriage won't work. Taking no chances, they return on the day they got married! Dick Golden is out of control as usual ... some story about working out with a St. Bernard ... he's done better! Under the heading of you just never know, Carol Brock received a donation of 5,000 bags of cement for our Clinic in Petite Goave, Haiti from Jose Selach of Alfalit after he visited our club last week. Very cool! Digger Martinez just returned from Chicago where he gave his niece the keys to his new lakefront condo since she's attending Northwestern for the next four years. Ramon Ferrer had four tickets to the races on Sunday for anyone who wanted them. Greg Martini wanted them. Enjoy. Rick Tonkinson was REALLY happy today because 1) the Shelter Box mission in Haiti is complete and his son Steven was honored for his work in distributing 23,000 Shelter Boxes - housing for 230,000 people; 2) October 28, Festival Miami will be presenting the Music of Motown and honoring the man who penned 51 hits for the label. Tonkinson Associates is the exclusive underwriter for the event; 3) He's really happy for his friend Bill Beckham and his continued support in all things Rotary and 4) If you are not currently a Rotary Foundation Sustaining Member expect to hear from Rick. He's going to treat you to lunch anyplace you want ... but it'll cost you! Judy Pantoja was pleased with the great turnout for Special Olympics and the help of all involved. She hopes that more Rotarians can participate in Basketball and Golf later this year. Margarita Tonkinson is happy to be leaving for a visit to her family in Bogota Colombia. She'll return in a few weeks. Keep smiling, happiness pays.

Working Rotarians - September 30, 2010
Greeter - Rodney Langer
Registration - Aaron Glasser
Collections - Abe Horowitz & Carlos Bolado
Head Table - John Wallace
Open the Meeting - Dick Golden
Invocation - Keith Phillips
Pledge - Diva Guttmann
Singers - Arne Themmen, Carol Brock & Rosendo Castillo
DeWitt Law Silver Dollars - Tom Dixon
Given to - Gene Witherspoon & George Reeves
Pin Drawing Gift - Dan Scipione
Pin Drawing Winner - Jack Witty
50/50 Raffle - Gloria Burns & Donald Trombly
50/50 Winner -???? Somebody won it ...
5-Way Test - Mead McCabe

Today's Program

Eric A. Eimstad, Vice President Sales and Marketing
Christine Rodriguez, Public Relations Director
Miami SeaQuarium

Some notable milestones in the Miami SeaQuarium's history: 9/24/1955 - the SeaQuarium opened, it was the third and largest oceanarium ever opened. 1955 - first manatee ever rescued (“Mamie”). 1960 – the dome, designed by the late Buckminster Fuller, was constructed and is still, today the unique feature that identifies the SeaQuarium. 1964 – “Flipper” TV show started and filmed there. 1968 – Hugo, the first killer whale east of the Mississippi River arrived. 1970 – Lolita came to SeaQuarium, 1976 -- the first manatee ever
conceived and born in captivity. 2006 – SeaQuarium re-opens after six feet of water covered it during Hurricane Wilma.

SeaQuarium has “Four Pillars of Commitment” – Entertainment, Education, Wildlife Conservation, and Community Involvement. Education programs include school field trips, day camps, school break camps and camp outs for Scouts. The wildlife conservation activities include rescue, rehabilitation and release of the endangered manatee and sea turtles. Community involvement encompasses discount coupons and fund raising for non-profits, and partnerships with Make-a-Wish and Lighthouse for the Blind providing swim programs (swimming with the dolphins).

Christina Rodriguez
The SeaQuarium family now includes dolphins (all but one were born at the SeaQuarium), Pacific whitesided dolphins, harbor seals, sea turtles, crocodiles and parrots. “Dolphin Harbor” opened in 2007, and allows guests to swim with dolphins in deep and shallow water.

To celebrate Lolita’s 40th anniversary at the Miami SeaQuarium, go to their website, and download a form to pledge $4 to go a charity that is helping wildlife affected by the oil spill, take it to the SeaQuarium, and get 40% off of the regular admission price. And coming up in October, the annual Monster Splash. Three days of trick n' treating with the animals. Take your children or grandchildren and celebrate Halloween at the Miami SeaQuarium.

And the Winner is.....
Our speakers graciously gave us two tickets to swim with the Dolphins at Dolphin Harbor. They are open ended and provide an experience of a lifetime. Master Auctioneer Dick Bullman did his thing and Catarina Jimenez bought the two tickets with proceeds going to our Foundation! Thank you Miami SeaQuarium, thank you Dick but most of all THANK YOU Catarina!!! ENJOY.

Thought for the Week
by Chris Morrison
"Folks who don't know why America is the Land of Promise should be here during an election campaign."  "Uncle Miltie" Berle


NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAM: "The Real Estate Collapse & Recovery" Michael Katz, Jones, Lang & LaSalle Real Estate.
See you next week, same time, same place.

No comments: