July 9, 2015 Meeting

Announcements and reminders

Scott Gillette was formally inducted into the club as a new member today.  He has had a 23 year career in banking and financial services and a beautiful girlfriend named Stacy who was here with him. Welcome Scott!

Today’s Rotarian of the Week was Chuck Witt for his work at the 4th of July fundraiser! Thanks Chuck!

Grants training is this Saturday, July 11th in Los Gatos. We still need people to go. Let Al know if you plan on going. There is also a makeup on the 25th in Hayward.

Area presidents meeting tomorrow morning at 7:30.

Tim thanked all the volunteers and announced that we raised somewhere around $4500 (net) at the 4th of July fundraiser in Aptos Park.

Our thoughts go out to Sandra whose husband is recovering from illness at home.

Our speaker today was Gayle McCallum ( Neal's daughter!)  who spoke to us about the Sister Cities program.

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Gayle McCallum spoke to the club about the Sister Cities program.  Shingu is our sister city in Japan. Santa Cruz young people go to Japan every spring break where they live with families for 10 days. In August, Shingu families send their students here for a week or so.  The speaker showed us slides from the program this spring,

Eight boys and three girls were selected this year to go to Shingu with two or three adult chaperones.  They learned about the culture, history and geography of Japan. They visited heritage sights such as castles, temples and shrines.  They were lucky enough to be there at the time of year to see the cherry blossoms. One of the highlights was a kimono wearing experience. Another was a boat ride down the local river.

One of the students, Carlin Cooke, spoke about his own experience on this last trip.  He said he was struck with how much the culture is built on trust, honor and honesty. He said the experience will affect the rest of his life!

There was a lively discussion afterwards about Carlin’s experiences there.