Our weekly meeting began with the covid-customary chat room for 15 minutes as early arrivers checked in. Mary Murphy returned from self-imposed exile to coordinate conversations during this gathering time. It all culminated when Mark Lucchesi gave a tutorial on the correct way to pronounce his last name: Lou – Kay – See. There will be an elocution test next week.
President La Mariana rang us to order at 12:16 and honors for the pledge leadership went to Jerry Winges, still glowing from the plethora of kudos he received for last week’s program in which we all went to Jerry’s graduate course on architecture as art and science, and we were far the better for it.
Mary Murphy had prepared the invocational “Thoughts For The Day” by inviting us to dwell with her on the gift of Gratitude. She extolled the many benefits to one’s psyche and soul of being grateful rather than complaining, blasé or critical. Then she encouraged us each to take specific actions of telling people of our gratitude for them. Thank you, Mary; you know we are grateful (sorry, had to say it).
Introductions came with Jennifer Pence introducing Carlos Moreno, a guest of the club. Carlos just turned 30, but told of being selected for one of our club’s scholarships when he was in 8th grade at BIS. He thought he “was rich” when we gave him his $500 prize, and then he religiously met with club members along the way and for his annual “goal session,” when he got another $100 each year of high school. He noted that the personal connection he felt with Jennifer as a coach, mentor and friend made him feel worthy, and was a huge encouragement. He then attended St. Mary’s followed by internships with Lisa Goldman at the City of Burlingame and with Recology and related businesses including positive influence from Joe La Mariana, and Fritz Brauner (in financial planning). He now owns a home in SSF (thanks in part to Mary Murphy) and his success story is as clear an example of the good that Burlingame Rotary does in its community outreach as can be imagined. As President Joe said, “this is what the program is all about.”
Two more announcements followed that tour de force:
First from Bill Tiedeman extolling the Rotary International Foundation’s annual funds appeal: the goal is for each Rotarian to give $200; the minimum requested from each member is $25. In addition, raffle tickets are unique because half the amount comes back to our club for distribution to community causes three years from now.
Second, President Joe shared his enthusiasm for the Golf Tournament this coming Monday with all kinds of fun and foolery, games and prizes, food and drink. Please come whether you are a golfer or not!
Chris Ramirez was the program, and revealed the inside scoop on Uber/Lyft driving—its rewards and pitfalls, its value and the tricks of the trade. He went through three cars in three years, drove about 6,000 – 8,000 miles each year for the ride share companies, and met up with people from all kinds of demographics of which he had known virtually nothing. He got to visit parts of the city he never knew existed, including some he fervently hopes never to visit again. It turns out the drivers hand over about 25% of their fares to the Uber company.
The meeting was drawn to a close at 1:44 in order for the Board of Directors to conduct a meeting (which had little chance of being 1% as interesting as this Rotary meeting proved to be).
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