President Bill opened the meeting by recognizing some Local Heroes. Steve Pietrolungo, Jake Finch, Jason Peplinski (a Guest and Simi Valley Unified School District Superintendent), and Mel Vines were invited up to be thanked and honored for their work in the school system. They were told that they are appreciated and doing great work in these most challenging of times. They were each awarded the coveted Happy Face Hill hat.
Bill also recognized some other Local Heroes who were with us today. Tom Herdering and Rocky Rhodes (both Guests) were thanked for their extreme generosity with their kidney donations. Duty above and beyond.....
Bill continued with talking about a meeting he had at Jerry's Coffee Shop recently. Where else would he have a meeting? The purpose of the meeting was to talk with a prospective member about joining the Rotary Club. They were overheard during the course of their conversation by another patron who was also interested in joining some type of service club and now both want to join the Rotary. The moral of the story is that we all need to get Our Story out there and advertise who we are and what we are about.
Steve, Jake, Jason and Mel.......
New Members
As a reminder, Kathy Scroggin had told us about Together Talks as a way to communicate with prospective new members. This is a small, informal ZOOM meeting to introduce Rotary, ask questions and get to know each other better. If you know someone interested in knowing more about Rotary, contact Kathy and she will take it from there.
Keep an eye out for quality people to bring into our club. They just need to be asked.
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Larry and Ryan gave us a quick update on Movie Night and thanked Tom Herdering from The Ranch for helping to get the message out. We can all help by sharing on Facebook as well as the following link:
We're in the home stretch so let's do all we can to support the advertisement effort! Ryan Valencia will be sending out an e-mail detailing volunteer shifts. Please look for that and Volunteer if you can.
Halloween Drive-In Movie
The Halloween movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, is still moving forward. More details to follow....
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PRESENTATIONS
Deb Davila continued with awards from her Demotion for those who were not able to make it to the party. Congratulations to all!
Deb thanked Bruce Bomberg for his work at the Attendance Table as part of the Club Service Team.
Deb thanked Vince Dulcich for his work as a Member at Large.
Deb thanked Cindy Jacoby for her work as Club Secretary, her work on the Peace Builder Committee as well as all her work on the Bulletin and with Public Relations.
Deb thanked Kathy Scroggin for her work as the Club Service Director, a position that Deb called the hardest Board Position there is.
Paul Harris Fellowships awarded
Leigh Seaton presented a Paul Harris plus 6 to Karen Thompson for her 14 years of service that include, among other things, the Christmas Shopping Spree, RYLA, YES!, the Scholarship Committee, sponsorship of and participation in the Cajun Festival for which she earned the title Banner Babe.
Leigh also presented a Paul Harris plus 3 to Carolyn Boucher for her 6 years of service in many activities that include Club Secretary, sponsorship of and participation in the Cajun Festival, RYLA, YES!, Smoke Detector replacement, and Bike Build to just name a few.
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It was announced that a Committee made up of John Bagnall, Tim Gray and Leigh Seaton will present findings to the Club in September regarding Club and Board approval for the Cajun Festival. Stay tuned....
John Tolson is looking for Volunteers this Saturday, August 22 to help with the parade on Traffic Control. Arrive at 8:30 am at the Library Parking lot. Look for or text John if you can help.
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WELCOME GUESTS
We had the following Guests this week:
Jim Lowry
Mark Lowry
Dwight Thompson
Tom Herdering
Rocky Rhodes
Jason Peplinski
Irene Seda
Lucie Volotzky
Linas Kojelis (Guest Speaker)
Jim in the middle and Mark on the right. The guy on the left snuck by security.
You can guess which one is Dwight.
Tom Herdering
Rocky Rhodes
Jason Peplinski
Irene Seda and Linas Kojelis
Lucie Volotzky
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Mr. Linas Kojelis
We had the honor of having Mr. Linas Kojelis, as a Guest of John Baxter, speak to to us about his experience working in the Reagan Administration.
Mr. Kojelis started working for President Reagan when he was still a student at UCLA for then-Governor Reagan. Upon Reagan's election as President, Mr. Kojelis went to Washington and worked for 8 years in the Reagan administration as well for a few months into the Bush administration as well. His duties included working as a Public Liaison for the President; working in the Department of Defense in various capacities; working in the White House coordinating events and speech writing; working for the Chief of Naval Operations coordinating both Vietnamese and Soviet Jewish refugee settlement in the US during the 1980's.
He gave us a brief history lesson on US-Soviet relations and listed three key events that President Reagan implemented that Mr. Kojelis felt brought about the demise of the Soviet Empire:
1. The building up of our Navy to 600 ships under Secretary of the Navy John Lehman.
2. Bringing back and supporting both the Voice of America and Radio Liberty as means of broadcasting to the world what the US was all about.
3. Putting teeth back into the CIA by appointing Bill Casey as its director.
It was a very informative talk but it was clear that Mr. Kojelis would need hours and hours to talk about his many fascinating experiences during the very turbulent times of the 1980's.
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John Baxter leading the Invocation
Herschel Berger (middle) leading the Pledge
Dorina Timbol welcoming the guests
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