Weekly Bulletin - November 28, 2012

Posted by David Whitehead

on Nov 28, 2012

Written by Bill Paul
Photos by Rick Mendoza

Congratulations to Deborah Shepard, RBRC Business Person of the Year
For more meeting photos, click the above photo

Visitors: Vanessa Andrade, Deborah Sheppard and John Mirrasou

Visiting Rotarians: Connie Siegel (back with us now for the winter), Larry King (former president of our club), and Laura Bruno

Upcoming Events: Cheer for Children, Tuesday, December 11th; St. Cross Giving Tree, December 19th after club meeting; Redondo Beach Tree Lighting Ceremony, December 4th at the Redondo Beach main library on PCH, 5:00 to 8:30 pm

Announcements: PDG Rick Mendoza described the relief efforts underway to assist Rotarians affected by Hurricane Sandy. He said 4,300 people in the hurricane’s path are being aided by five Rotary districts in the region. Anyone wishing to contribute to the relief effort should contact Rick at 310-544-4044 or visit the Rotary relief website at http://nynjrotary.org/disaster-relief.

Rotarian Bill Gard announced that Deborah Shepard has been named the club’s Businessperson of the Year. She is the Chair of the Visitors Bureau of the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce. Deborah is also the director of sales and marketing for the Crowne Plaza Hotel and is involved in numerous charitable and volunteer activities throughout the community. Congratulations Deborah.

Luncheon speaker, Beth Anderson, told us about the Rotary International Rose Parade Float. Beth is a 20-year Rotarian and serves on the Rose Parade Float Committee for Rotary International. “It is a public image effort and was started in 1927,” she said. “The real PR value of the float is in the months before the parade itself. That’s when we get lots of TV coverage, newspaper articles, etc., telling the story of Rotary.” For the 2012 float, she said, “1,200 volunteers worked 11,520 hours getting it ready for the parade. All the work paid off as we won the Princess Trophy.” Rotary International does not fund the float. Instead, districts clubs and individual Rotarians do she explained. Three dollars of District 5280 member dues support the Rotary float annually.

Karina Garcia asked me to remind members that we have additional spots that have opened up for the Rose Parade Float. “We currently have five committed volunteers but we need at least 15+ volunteers in order to secure transportation to and from the Rose Parade Float (preparation site),” she said. The Redondo Beach Rotary Club has time reserved on December 28 between 4 and 11 pm to work on the float in Pasadena. Contact Karina at 310-420-6537 or by email to Karina.BeachHomes@gmail.com.

This week’s luncheon concluded at 1:30 pm.

written by Bill Paul