Burlingame Rotary met last Wednesday: its second meeting of the New Year is now under its belt. Oh wait, speaking of “under the belt,” it was the last meeting of being catered by the team of young chefs fresh back from graduating at Le Cordon Bleu, the Paris institute on the Seine, near the Eiffel Tower. Brother-sister Jacob and Sarah Moratta have introduced us to fresh cooked self-made culinary creations for several months now. They are now dedicating themselves full time to preparing to open their newly purchased restaurant in Burlingame on Idaho and Bayswater streets: the previous Nini’s is now Kiki’s.
As we gathered, Lage Andersen tried to convince us that, unlike a certain newly elected Congressman from New York, his knee replacement was not a figment of imagination but very real. Marc Friedman circulated trying to get volunteers to sign up for his Rotary mentorship program (I signed up!).
Bobba Venkatadri was filled with a passionate and worthwhile story of the school he (with Rotary investment support) opened last month in rural India. He explained that technology has increased the gap between “haves” and “have-nots” since families of means often send their kids to schools with laptops, internet, the works, and at the same time have little to no interest in supporting public education for those whose families are laboring in the fields and have never had anybody graduate from any school. So selfless and significant.
Phil Siegle (yes, yes, the same one who was born in the capitol of New Jersey in the same year and same hospital as moi) was asked to lead the pledge, and he came through with flying colors.
Father Michael Mahoney prayed over our food and over us all that we each pray to our God and receive blessings upon our lives, families and endeavors of this new year.
Barely with time to sit down and eat, Mark Lucchesi stood up to have us give a round of recognition to those with January birthdays (roughly 1/12 of the club, go figure). He slyly noted that the January birthday boys and girls were all either Capricorns or Aquariuses (Aquarii?). And he reminded us of some of the character traits sometimes attributed to these birth seasons.
Not to be outdone by Phil, Michael and Mark, President Fritz turned out attention to the matter of wanting more members to join his President’s Club (nothing to do with Obama, Trump, Biden or Cheney [oops, that election is still far away]). This president’s club is an annual invitation for people to express appreciation to our club’s president and leadership team and also to guild the coffers of our club for use in approved and Rotary mission causes as they may arise during the year. To lead off, Dennis Zell, Esquire admitted, under oath, that he had in fact been promoted to shareholder status at Hoge Fenton, which is his law firm. This is a notable and respected promotion to this past president, and in tandem with having received this good news, he donated a good news cash donation to our Rotary Club’s president’s club. Bobba than volunteered that he too would like to join said club, which was also received with applause. Then Alden Cunningham asked If he could be a half member since he is a member of our club for half of every year and for the other months retreats [a dangerous word to use around the colonel] to Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he is an active member in that Rotary club. Conversations ensued, calls were made to the Pentagon, and after high suspense, President Fritz ruled that Alden was more than welcome in our president’s club as a member. Or was it a half-member?
Our program speaker was Father Michael, who had to duck out last week from speaking duties due to a funeral, more than made up for his previous absence with a program reviewing how religious interest and reputedly also spirituality have both decreased across America in the past decade. He gave a cogent and lucid overview of decrease for Roman Catholics, evangelical Protestants, Mainline Protestants. Those gaining are Muslim and Hindu faiths.
Reasons for the decline include so-called mixed marriages, adults who had little religious training in childhood, and what they had often was not supported by parents. It was noted that across the board, voluntary institutions are not attracting nearly the numbers of adherents as in prior generations, including Rotary, YMCA, single interest clubs (eg. Stamp or coin collecting), scouts, etc.
Father Michael took questions for an extended time, as obviously the topic and the quality of research presented had captured the attention of most of the club. President Fritz asked our clergy (the Tres Amigos) to work on a possible follow up for the club in a program including table discussions on these matters of cultural and societal change and how Rotary can help people to participate in the common life of communities, to be their very best in how they live, and to be an agent of positive change not only by clubs and groups, but also individually. (These are my words; Fritz was more articulate in his wording).
NEXT WEEK we will host a popular leader of religious, civic and social understanding and reconciliation. Karen Stiller is an executive with the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, which just released a landmark survey of Bay Area Jewish Identity—an authoritative, thorough and timely resource with results which will surprise most of us who may presume we already know very much about this topic, titled: Rotary is “fair to all concerned;” How does that work out for Bay Area Jews?
See you at Rotary for our new Sapore Italiano caterers, for more local color from our president and his wonderful minions, and for this stand-out program. This is an excellent week to “Bring A Friend to Rotary!” (And remember to RSVP by Monday!!!)
