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May 24
Ben Howland-
UCLA Basketball
“The UCLA
Program”
May 31
Yosh
Setoguchi
“My Medical
Practice with
Shriners
Hospital”
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This Week...
May 24
Ben Howland- UCLA Basketball Coach
"The UCLA Program"
Upcoming...
May 19
UCLA Rotaract Club
College Day for Uni High Interact
May 31
Yosh Setoguchi
"From University High to WVRC; My
Medical Practice Today with Shriners
Hospital"
June 7
Ying Nian Wu- Professor, UCLA
"NTD TV- An Independent Station
Delivering Uncensored Chinese News,
Chinese Culture, and Performing Arts"
June 23
Ed Jackson’s Demotion Party
Beach Club- Santa Monica
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**IMPORTANT**
In line with the 2011-2014 Innovative & Flexible
Pilot Program, the WVRC Executive Board voted to
temporarily add provisions to the bylaws to allow
for Associate and Corporate Membership. These
additions are set to expire at the end of the Pilot
Program in 2014. The decision is open to member
input- please speak with a board member if you have
any questions or concerns.
Our greeters this week were Terry R White and Terry
De Sousa, who set the tone with their lovely smiles
and gracious words of encouragement.
Our Pledge was led by Hank Heuer, and the invocation
this week was given by Tom Barron.
Visiting Rotarians:
Roger Davis, our friend from the Jackson,
Mississippi club; Gloria Herrea, Past President,
Century City; our speaker, Alison Clay-Duboff,
Torrance club.
Head table:
PP and presently assistant governor, District 5280,
Gordon Fell, who with Mark Rogo shared duties in
developing the University High School small learning
community school of business; PP Sean McMillan, who
helped to bring chuckles to our meeting, since Prez
Ed’s fourth language appears to be (not) humor;
Alison Clay-Duboff; PEN Mark Rogo; and fourth
quarter program chair, PP Michael Newman.
Announcements:
WVRC is supporting the 123rd Annual
Memorial Day Ceremony at the LA National Cemetery.
Festivities begin at 10:30 AM Monday, May 28. PP
Steve Scherer presented a saber to outstanding Army
ROTC Cadet Edson Diaz on May 2nd. Cadet
Diaz will attend our May 31st meeting. We
are officially chartering the Marymount High School
Interact Club, started by two students we sponsored
at RYLA last year. WVRC sponsored seven students to
RYLA again April 27-29.
As you may know, Steve Pettise’s last meeting with
us was last week.
Included is part of his speech, which I think
is worth sharing:
Thank you,
everyone and particularly my sponsor, PP Jim
Collins, who just happens to be one of my idols.
The friends I’ve made and the things we have
done together have been great.
One regret
is that I didn’t have the opportunity to join
earlier, and principally
that is what I’d like to talk a minute about this
afternoon. A lot of people live,
work and play and I will bet are like me who want a
connection to the community, but don’t know or
haven’t been asked about Rotary. When you live in a
big city it is very impersonal, so people hunger to
feel a part of things . . . how do I know? Because
of my life experiences.
Otherwise,
why would Park City, UT, where we are moving, a city
of 26,000 permanent residents have two thriving,
relatively BIG Rotary Clubs? Why would Santa Monica
have 250 people in their club? At least partially
because they have been asked.
Rotary is
wonderful and does amazing work and gives people the
ability to get involved in their community, meet
other wonderful people who are already involved and
also get involved regionally, nationally and
internationally
A great
thing for me has been to visit clubs in the Czech
Republic, Germany, Egypt, and India. Domestically, I
visited eight clubs in the Jackson, MS area, clubs
in Barrington IL, Mass., Charlotte, NC and Maui as
well as Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. I urge every
one of you to do the same . . . you learn a lot.
I would be
remiss not to call out a few people who have become
friends and I will particularly miss, but I might
become emotional so I’ll just say we’ll see you in
Park City or Maui.
Best wishes, Steve.
We know you will help to make Park City a
better place!
PP Michael Newman introduced our speaker:
Alison Clay-Duboff has had difficult and
life-changing experiences that drive her to give to
her community in any way that she can. In the few
spare moments between her full-time career as a
realtor and raising her family, Alison has been
involved with community-serving organizations that
strive to provide help where it is most needed.
Back in 2000, Alison was living comfortably with her
family in Saudi Arabia until tragedy struck.
Her husband passed away due to a sudden heart
attack, and she soon found herself and her family
nearly penniless. Much to Alison’s surprise and
relief, the expatriate community in Saudi Arabia
came together and
provided help and funds which allowed her to return
to the U.S. and start over.
“Perfect strangers came up to me and helped. Several
people gave me $1,000 and didn’t even know me,”
Alison recalled. “That was a life-saving and
eye-opening experience.”
That experience propelled her into community
service. Since then, Alison Clay-Duboff has helped
provide Thanksgiving meals for needy families, and
she volunteered with Habitat for Humanity. With
Torrance Rotary K-9 Book Drive, she helped provide
more than 230,000 books to kids in Los Angeles area
local schools.
Alison has also helped put together “Downtown
Sounds,” an effort to help Torrance schools continue
their music education programs. She speaks at school
career days and she is interested in working with
the local Meals-on-Wheels program, which helps
provide meals to the elderly.
Why does she do all this extra work?
“I want to give back,” said Alison. “When I
was at the lowest point in my life, perfect
strangers came and helped me. And now I want to give
back for the rest of my days because of how people
saved my life and my daughter’s life.”
—YOE Ed Jackson
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