February 9th, 2016
Happy Valentine’s Day!
A Few Highlights from our Club Meeting:
Welcome: President Lora called the meeting to order noting what a beautiful day it is in La Jolla.
Invocation: Burton Housman
Pledge: Ted Rutter, “One” of President Lora’s favorite Past Presidents.
Song: “Have I Told You Lately” by Rod Stewart and Van Morrison, with thoughts of upcoming Valentine’s Day festivities, led by David Shaw.
Reporters note; this was probably not our best effort.
Vistors:
The Club Welcomed…
Sally Fuller introduced her guest, Sook Hansen.
Judy Nelson was visiting us again; she is a member of the Temecula Rotary Club and works across from the La Valencia.
Karla Marsh’s daughter, Molly, graced us once again with her presence, while Chuck was off skiing in Lake Tahoe.
Happy Bucks:
- John Brown shared a portrait of himself, 15-years younger, when he was Club President. Of course it was painted by our own Ron Spelman, who presents every departing President with their portrait. (More than one Past President has been known to say they took the job to get the portrait).
- Claire Reese celebrated her birthday on the 5th of February and was happy to be given a poem that was written by her granddaughter.
Club/Committee/Event Announcements:
- Ken King announced that a new membership roster was in the works, and passed around a draft, asking all members to verify their information and update birthdays (no year required) and add wedding anniversaries.
- President Lora reminded everyone that the Four-Way Test would apply to all birth dates.
- Rotarians at Work Day is scheduled for April 30 this year, and the La Jolla clubs are planning a joint effort at MCAS Miramar, with the first planning meeting coming soon. Jeanne Cherbeneau volunteered to attend the meeting and update us on what is being planned.
- Cal Mann is heading to Sasebo, Japan, to attend the 65th anniversary meeting of the Sasebo Rotary Club and will be joined there by Hiroshi Yoshida.
- No one at today’s meeting could remember just how long we have enjoyed our “Sister Club” relationship with Sasebo, but this reporter remembers that it started prior to his membership 25-years ago.
- President Lora reminded us that our “Haiti Crew” is only three -weeks away from leaving for the chicken-coop project in Jeremie, Haiti. Not only will they be building a coop to accommodate 600 laying hens, but there are plans to paint a recently completed (hopefully) dorm for orphan children. Also Ken King, Pat Stouffer and Josh who all claim to have some grading experience may possibly build a road using equipment borrowed from the UN. It might be worth making the trip just to watch that.
- The group is also taking sandals, soccer balls and writing supplies for the children. She passed around a sign-up sheet for donations to assist with those items, and noted, “Haitians have a saying, ‘Many Hands Make the Load Lighter.’ That sounds like it could be a Rotary Slogan also.”
Thank You, Mac Millar!
Speaker: Kin Searcy
Ken King introduced today’s speaker, Kin Searcy, a docent at the Palomar Observatory.
The observatory is owned and operated by Cal Tech. It was designed and built to be “beautiful”. It is open to the public with a visitor gallery, tours and educational events.
The telescope is in use approximately 300-nights a year and is shared by scholars from around the world, including Yale, China, and Oxford, as well as Cal Tech. Its mission is to do science, train astronomers, and support the development of state-of- the-art technology, and share all this information.
The key observational tools are Direct Imaging, Photometry, and Spectroscopy, which splits light with a prism to measure what things are made of.
The telescope employs a 200 inch mirror and went into operation in 1949, with the help of Edwin Hubble. (Think Hubble Space Telescope).
Recently, Cal Tech and Palomar Observatory have been called the “Pluto Killers” as they have delisted Pluto from the list of planets. Apparently it does not possess two of the three requirements to actually be a planet.
Palomar uses the PALM-3000 Adaptive Optics System, which is currently the most advanced in the world at this time.
Tours are conducted at the observatory from April to October each year. Check the website for hours and more information:www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/
La Jolla Treasure Hunt:
It’s retro-time at Surf Beat. This week we’re taking you back in time to our old “La Jolla Treasure Hunt” contest. Are you game? Be the first person to correctly identify the location where the above photo was taken. Correct answers must be emailed to: surfbeat@rotarycluboflajolla.com The winner will receive recognition in next week’s Surf Beat! LJ Treasure Hunt spotlights the hidden gem locations in La Jolla. If you have a suggested location, take a photo or send a note to surfbeat@rotarycluboflajolla.com – previous treasure hunt locations can be found by exploring the Surf Beat archive beginning with the March 6, 2014 edition. Photo credit: Greg Wiest (dedicated to David Weston)
Check Out this Weeks News Bits. Click the Logo Below
From The Pages of:
February 2016 Edition
“The world sees Germany as a country of hope and chances,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared last September, as refugees fleeing war and conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere were streaming into her country in unprecedented numbers. As of November, 792,000 people had made the journey to Europe by boat since the beginning of 2015, with the majority ending up in Germany. There, they receive food, clothing, medical attention, and shelter while they wait for their claims to be evaluated and the government to decide if they can stay.
Watching the crisis unfold in Berlin last year, Anne Kjaer Riechert saw a need – and an opportunity. Riechert, originally from Denmark, studied at International Christian University in Japan as a Rotary Peace Fellow in 2010-12 and helped set up Stanford University’s Peace Innovation Lab in Berlin the following year. “What we are trying to do is to bring people working in innovation, technology, user interface, start-ups, entrepreneurs – people with a lot of ideas – together with NGOs and people with social causes,” she says. “In April, when the refugee crisis was starting, we did a lot of interviews with refugees and social workers and brainstormed ideas.” One of the projects that resulted was Refugees on Rails.
Club Meetings Unless otherwise noted, all club meetings are Tuesday, 12:00 noon – 1:30 p.m. at La Valencia Hotel, 1132 Prospect St., La Jolla (Map) Check out the Upcoming Guest Speakers on the Club Calendar
Upcoming Events
-
PETS – Southern California Nevada.
LAX Marriott – Information & REGISTRATIONFeb 19, 2016 – Feb 21, 2016 - District 5340 Peace Forum
USD – Kroc Institute for Peace and JusticeFeb 27, 2016
8:30 AM – 12:00 PM
-
Click here to visit the district website.
Rotary Club of La Jolla is one of sixty clubs in the San Diego area’s Rotary District 5340 and one of the 34,000 clubs that make up our parent organization,
Published weekly by Rotary Club of La Jolla Visit our club website: http://www.rotarycluboflajolla.com/ Friend us on Facebook Questions/Issues/Feedback: surfbeat@rotarycluboflajolla.com Contributors: Lora Fisher, Diane Salisbury, David Shaw, Patrick StoufferEditor: Susan Farrell
To receive Surf Beat each week, click the “subscribe” button above.Looking for a past issue? Surf Beat Archive has all online editions since July 2013.Submissions to Surf Beat are welcome and appreciated.* * * * Subscribe
ljrc2016word.wordpress.com 