12 July, 2001 Meeting of the Westwood Village Rotary
Club
PRESIDENT GEORGE DEA started the first meeting of
his reign with a bang, proclaiming this year's District 5280 theme,
"Mankind Is Our Business" and District Governor Len Wasserstein's
target for the year, a net gain of 5 members for each club.After
CLARICE EVANS led the salute to the flag, PP ANDY ANDERSON read
a touching poem with an O'Henry ending about a harried Mom and her
sweet little kid.The unbeatable combo of JIM DOWNEY AND LENNY FRIEDMAN
took us through Home on the Range.GEORGE introduced his new board
at the head table: STEVE ADLER, PETER MORE, TODD GURVIS, ANN ELKINS,
KEVIN KOMATSU. TED IHNEN and RUDY ALVAREZ were not in attendance.
Rotarians ALT KARLSSON of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in Stockholm, YASUO NAKAZAWA, CEO and General Manager of
Sports Club in Suita, Osaka, Japanand his lovely wife; Rotary Auxiliary
members Eloise Siskel, Shirley More, Vivianne Younker, and Janice
Koyama Dea; and guest Alke Muller, a German Textile Designer all
livened PRES. GEORGE'S kick-off meeting.No sooner had RO SHAW, Medical
Fitness Expert, led us to nirvana with deep breathing, loosened
knees, and waves, than our new leader began fining this wretchedly
poor group. Amazing what a little power can do even to a nice guy
like George. He almost fined his own wife! Howard Siskel said he
didn't have the $2 million dollars he thought Eloise was worth so
George fined him a lesser amount for having a 50th anniversary.
John Singleton complained the paltry sum they finally settled on
amounted to about 1/2 of one cent per day.To add insult to injury,
Dave Whitehead was fined for improper exposure. In thanking our
PPSteve Adler for a splendid year of leadership, RALPH BEASOM then
presented our PP STEVE ADLER with a compendium of photographs and
Windmill out-takes.
KEN KILPO introduced our speaker Mr. Andreas Ekman,
Consul General of Sweden. With an MBA from Stockholm School of Economics
Ekman has an impressive background beginning in Washington as Minister
of Economic Affairs at the Swedish Embassy. He has continued to
operate as an economist on a global stage with consular stints in
Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the countries of Central
and Eastern Europe. Calling Sweden "the new Eden of the telecom
world," and "the Klondike of the Wild Web", Ekman's
mission is to promote trade, industrial cooperation, academic contacts,
tourism and cultural exchange between Sweden and the Western United
States. Citing business ties already established with Dell, Cisco,
Compaq, Hewlett Packard and others, he is especially interested
in building upon these connections in the telecom industry. California
is a major focus of his efforts at stimulating business with Sweden
in economics, academics, film, life sciences, and the environment.
He believes Scandinavia is economically pacing the rest of Europe
and that his small country of 9 million population in an area the
size of California will be the economic leader of Europe in the
future. It was obvious that he esteemed highly the enviable record
of California's Nobel Prize winners in science. Consul Andreas Ekman
invited everyone to celebrate the 100th anniversary of
the initiation of the Nobel Peace Prize competition in February
2002, which Sweden will celebrate at the Museum of Science and Industry
in Los Angeles. As a windup to the short Q&A period, STEVE SHERER
elicited chuckles and guffaws with: "My wife is Swedish…Why
are Swedish women so beautiful?"
Before he rang the final gong, Pres. GEORGE voiced
the sympathy of the entire Westwood Village club for Doug Desch's
loss of his beloved Opal, and announced there will be a memorial
ceremony for her in mid-September.
Editor for the day,
Lenore Hoag Mulryan