Announcements: 

 

1)  Jay Miller and wife Elise invited all to attend a basketball game featuring one of our CSM scholarship recipients—January 31, 7:00 PM at CSM.  Contact Jay and join him if you can.

 

2)  Fritz Brauner is seeking more input on what type of community service grants the membership would like to sponsor.  Please contact him or click on the link below.  

 

3)  April 21 the Club will host our fundraiser “Burlingame’s Got Talent!”  Save the date and let any talented people out there, that you might know, to consider performing.

 

4) Our Japanese Student exchange program will happen March 21-31.  There are 4 girls and one boy who will be hosted by Rotary families. 

    

 

President Cary asked any past Burlingame Rotary presidents in the room to stand, and 10 stood up!  These included Sheryl Young, Marilyn Orr, Lage Andersen, Michael Kimball, Mark Johnson, Bob Doerr, John Delaney, Fritz Brauner, Marc Friedman and Dennis Zell.  He then asked those that were members of his President’s Club to sit down; 4 sat and six were left standing (names withheld on request of those standing!)  Under a shakedown and threat of a $5 fine, Kimball, Fritz and John Delaney agreed to join the prestigious club. Dennis Zell borrowed $5 from a well healed Rotarian at his table and eventually coughed it up.     

 

Jerry Winges presented a 10 minute slide show of our international project: Digitization of the Tribal Girls Welfare School in Vissanapeta India.  This slide show has been presented to 6 other Clubs and Rotary groups so far with other presentations scheduled for February in order to raise DDF (District Designated Funds) to support the project.  Our committee of 8 Burlingame Rotary members including Bobba Venkatadri who brought the project to our club is working hard to meet the application submittal deadline of March 1 to District 5150 and Rotary International.  So far we have raised $21,664 in DDF with the goal of reaching $50,000 in DDF to qualify for an additional $40,000 match from the Rotary Foundation.  Clubs have until March 1 to make donations and many wait until the last minute to decide which projects to sponsor.

 

Charlene Drummer  of our Committee summarized additional cash donations that we have received for the project which can go to other infrastructure costs not included in the basic grant.  We feel confident that we can meet our goals and will keep the Club informed of progress.    

 

 

Speaker:  

 

Jennifer Pence introduced our own Burlingame Rotary member Grace Redman, owner of a successful employment agency and founder of Dare to Achieve.  Grace is also an author and a podcaster and hosts Real Talk with Grace Redman.

 

Grace shared her personal history, challenges and eventual awakening to a life of self-acceptance, joy and fulfillment.  In one story, she talked about the untimely death of her mother at 50, and how she later found strength and an opportunity for growth by being resilient and overcoming the dark days—it had become a gift.  

 

She started with a quote from the movie “Rocky” – “It ain’t about how hard you hit but how much you can take and keep on going, how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward—that’s how winning is done.” 

 

Some of her main points:

Your core beliefs and belief system are formed between ages 0 to 11 years old. 

 

Challenges are inevitable;  Challenges are opportunities for growth

There are no failures, only feedback; failures help you gain wisdom, knowledge and resilience.  

Stop being a “people pleaser;” don’t give your power away to others.

Life happens for us, not to us.

 

Everyone has down times and serious challenges to face.  There were numerous comments from many members in the room about their own dark times and the gift of overcoming them and moving to a happier place.   Faith, belief in a higher power, celebrating your wins, being resilient, help from family and friends, other available resources were all mentioned. 

 

And perhaps the greatest realization by Jim Shypertt – “Women are smarter than Men.”