Burlingame Rotary Club
Founded in 1925

Lunch Meetings are held every Wednesday for the Rotary year 2019 - 2020. 

Start of a New Rotary Year.
Welcome President Cheri Carr
HIGH GEAR - Meeting Date:  January 22, 2020
President Cheri called the meeting to order at 12:20 PM
 Pledge of Allegiance: Doug Person lead the club in the pledge.                 
Invocation: President Carr’s invocation was about kindness. She reminded us that part of our mission as Rotarians is to seek ways to work in service to our community, through selfless acts of kindness. There are obvious benefits in helping others, from reciprocity to being aligned with our own core values to simply feeling good. Unfortunately, between day to day life, stress and traversing the competitive world in which we live, it’s easy to forget how important it is to be altruistic. She quoted Lao Tzu “Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” She also shared a quote by Charles Dickens, “A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self,” and one from the Dalai Lama “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” Great words.
Visiting Rotarians:  No visiting Rotarians
Guest of the club: President Carr introduced Sherrie Hammer who is today’s speaker.
Announcements:  Out next lunch meeting is January 29, 2020, at Poplar Creek and the speaker will be Claire Day, Chief Program Office for Alzheimer’s’ Association who will give us an update on the latest research.
Fireside Chat: Doug Parsons invited new members, and old members who want to brush up on their Rotary knowledge, to the next Fireside Chat to be held at Joe La Mariana’s home on February 6th at 6pm.
 
Newscast: After some fellowship President Carr brought our ‘token Millennium’ member (she says she isn’t one) Sarah Haas to the podium to deliver the Newscast. Sarah’s fresh and irreverent approach to the club newscast brought many laughs. First she shared the things that are easier to do than join the Rotary Club of Burlingame, including: Applying for citizenship under the Trump administration, Getting a new license at the DMV, Having a baby, Getting a job with no “prior experience”, Finding a parking spot in San Francisco, and Running for President of the United States. Who knew? She then moved to predictions for 2020, after she was proud to announce that her prediction about the 49ers winning the Superbowl was right on. Not sure about that Sarah, as Superbowl is next week…but I hope you’re right. Go Niners!  In 2020 she predicts that in a 3rd World War Switzerland will remain neutral, Trump will find a better spray tan, Kids will take over the world with the slogan ‘Go Boomer’ in deference to Greta Thunberg. But my favorite prediction was ‘Baby Yoda wins the Presidency.’ All hail the Mandalorian! Great job Sarah.
 
Speaker: Cherie Hammer, Development Director, NCEFT
Before introducing Cherie Hammer, NCEFT (National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy) President Carr shared some interesting facts about horses. The horse industry has about 4.6 million Americans working with 9 million horses in an industry which generating $39 billion annually. Worldwide there are about 58 million horses. Horses are social animals who experience loneliness and mourn the passing of a companion.
Cherie Hammer joined NCEFT in February 2014. She holds a BS in Environmental Studies from UC Davis and earned her MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkley.  Cherie is a life-long horse lover and has served on numerous non-profit boards in the areas of education, youth athletics and her church. Cherie introduced us the work her organization does with a video of ‘Emilio’ a little boy who has made tremendous progress at NCEFT. When he came to NCEFT he had very little language skills, sound or expression. Working with equine therapy he has gained strength, endurance, coordination, and improved eye-contact. Emilio was very proud of riding backwards on a horse – this promotes a strong core which aids in walking. The organization serves children and adults from 2 to 92 with cerebral palsy, MS, Stroke recovery, amputees, autism, ADHD, and PTSD. They work with the Palo Alto VA hospital and patients who have been told they will never walk have achieved ambulatory status through horse therapy. Our club learned that riding a horse is like walking to a person’s body. The therapy does not allow for saddles which allows the person to experience the movement of the horse. The Veterans program is no cost to military personnel.  NCEFT works with the San Mateo Elementary School District to hold Camps and School Programs filling the need for special needs kids for a camp experience. NCEFT also has mental health initiatives and resilience workshops.
NCEFT was founded 49 years ago and is a non-profit. There are only 3 other centers on the West coast. Equine therapy is an accepted therapy worldwide and has been around since the 1960s. The organization relies heavily on contributions and gifts and on volunteers. They are located in Woodside at 880 Runnymede Road. For more information or to make a contribution go to https://www.nceft.org/about/
Thank you, Cherie, we learned a lot about the therapeutic benefits that horses bring to people and the wonderful things your organization does for special needs kids, veterans, amputees, people with cerebral palsy Alzheimer’s, PTSD, and ADHD to name a few.
Polio Certificate: President Carr presented Cherie with a certificate representing 5 polio shots to be made in her name as a thank you for being today’s guest speaker.
The meeting was Adjorned at 1:25PM - See you next week.
Speakers
Jan 22, 2020 12:15 PM
National Center for Equine Facilitated Therapy
Jan 29, 2020 12:15 PM
Chief Program Officer for the Alzheimer's Association
Feb 05, 2020 12:15 PM
Financial Update for 2020
Feb 12, 2020 12:15 PM
Italian Club Update
Feb 19, 2020 12:15 PM
Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA
Mar 18, 2020 12:15 PM
Economic Outlook
View entire list
Member Birthdays
Mike Heffernan
January 1
 
Duffy Offield
January 6
 
Sarah Haas
January 7
 
Marianne Kristofferson
January 13
 
Linna Golodriga
January 14
 
Ted Kruttschnitt
January 14
 
Bob Doerr
January 16
 
Jay Miller
January 23
 
Lisa Goldman
January 25
 
Russell Hampton
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