Visalia Breakfast Rotary - Visalia Breakfast Rotary News

Past-President, Milt, presents outgoing President Dennis with an award of appreciation for all of his hard work. Odd, now Dennis is smiling, did anyone else catch that?

Bob Dickey, our new President-Elect, handled the emcee duties nicely and had the crowd in stitches, at least the 3 closest people to him that could hear what he had to say. Needless to say, it took a bit to get our P/A system working properly.

We had a crowd of about 70 in attendance. A huge "thank you" needs to go out to the committee who put on the dinner. We had a great time!

We promisted Gary and Donna that they would be in the newsletter this month. Here you go guys!

Matt's "secretaries" officially attach Dennis's new Past-President pen with a diamond in the middle. Keep an eye out for Dennis new pen at an upcoming VBR meeting and congratulate him on a great job.

You really don't want to know what's going on here, now do you?

Actually, this was the start to the skit that the dinner committee put together dramatizing Dennis's visit to "Dawea Kelta" hospital after he took a spill on his bike.

And the skit continues here with Carol Firstman portraying Dru Quesnoy as the hospital's marketing director.

And his exam continues here with Dr. Cislowski's (Mike Sheltzer) performing a cardiac exam.

Huge USC fan, Todd Martin (Mark Perry meets desktop troll), performs physical therapy on Dennis.

And here we see Matt Kneeland (Bruce Panttaja) helping get our little patient discharged with a shiny new cane.

June 25th

Regular VBR Meeting

Todd Martin announces the upcoming Promo-Demo Dinner this weekend. Special thanks goes out to all of the Dinner Committee Members.

Incoming President, Matt Kneeland, brings "Cheers" back to the Club from Birmingham England, site of this years Rotary International 2009 Convention. The convention hosted approximately 40,000 Rotarians from all around the world and featured speakers such as the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, Mia Farrow as well as many other Rotary leaders.

President Dennis presented our progress and achievements throughout his year. This was a great overview of all that we have accomplished this year.

June 20-23rd

Rotary International Convention - Birmingham England

Opening Ceremony entertainment included the Korean Royal Dance Group, normally reserved for the heads of state of Korea.

The crowd was an estimated 40,000 Rotarians.

During the opening ceremony, a flag from every nation present was paraded on to the stage and placed in the line of flags for the entire convention. This was a very moving portion of the convention and the roar of the crowd when the United States was brought up was very moving.

The surprise keynote speaker was the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon of South Korea. Mr. Ban told the Rotarians that the U.N. could not do what it does without Rotary International, and encouraged all clubs to continue their humanitarian work.

Well look who ran into eachother in England. The booths in the background are representative of the other 200 or so booths that were selling Project, Rotary Merchandise, various Rotary Fellowships or even Slicer/Dicer type of goods.

Here is a pretty good shot of the House of Friendship where all of the booths were. Overall, a very busy affair.

At the Warwick Castle dinner and social event, Matt and Dawn (and family) joined William Martin and Marty Zeeb from County Center Rotary for dinner. Note that we are trying to blend in with the locals with a "pint".

Even Matt's family got caught up in the mood at the Warwick Castle social. Here is his family and cousin, Mitch, who was traveling with them.

June 18th

Regular VBR Meeting

June 11th

Regular VBR Meeting

Glenn Black announces that we will have our first VBR Social on July 31st at the Rawhide's new stadium during a Rawhide game.

Todd Martin is on the Promo-Demo Dinner committee. Todd announced that the Promo-Demo dinner will be on June 27th at the Holiday Inn. RSVP for dinner to Todd or Krista.

Our program this morning was presented by Gloria Alsing. Gloria is a consumer advocate and gave us her feedback on various "infomercial" products, including the ThighMaster, as you can see here.

Gloria also did tests with the group on OxiClean and the edge painting device. Most of the products failed miserably, but the "Pro-Caulk" proved to be a very effective was of smoothing out the caulk just right, although Gloria suggested that you can also use a credit card to smooth caulk just as easily. A funny and informative presentation.

June 10th

Camp Royal Cookout BBQ

Here we've got the "Cue Crew" getting the BBQs going. In all, we had 17 volunteers show up to cook Tri-Tip Dinners for 160 students and staff. Marty and Cindy Prah (almost) coordinated the dinner and did a great job after taking the reigns over this year.

Marty presents the Club with a hand made thank you from the students at Camp Royal.

Dru Quesnoy, Sherri Panttaja (Bruce's wife) and Cindy Prah (almost) prep the chili beans.

We caught Doug "testing" the watermelon. Apparently, everything turned out just fine.

Gary Amon and Reggie Johnson were huddled near the chips and salsa that Brian Rouch whipped up. Hey, you've got to feed the crew too!

Steve and Bill turned into cooking maestros and really did a great job with the steaks.

The meal is served family style with "runners" from each table that come past the serving window and pick up course after course. Along with the tri-tip, we also had chili beans, fruit, salsa and tortillas. VBR has been known for the past seven years as cooking the BEST MEAL OF THE WEEK. That's right baby, Club Pride!

Look ma, all washed up for supper.

And finally, the spoils go to the victors, or um, the cooks.

June 5-7th

District 5230 Conference in Monterey

Our DG, August Hioco, hosted the District Conference at the Embassy Suites in Monterey where we celebrated our Rotary year. Each Club President and Club leaders joined the celebration.

Attending the Conference from our Club, Bob Dickey, Anees Akhund, Matt and Dawn Kneeland, George and Mandy Crites, also enjoyed some great meals and even celebrated Mandy's birthday with a great dinner. Other VBR Members who attended included Mark Perry, Mike Clancy and Chuck Barnes, who was awarded the Rotarian of the Year for District 5230, great job Chuck!

The VBR Golf team did not represent the Club well. In fact, we dropped off the score card and slinked away so as not to be noticed.

Chuck Barnes give the District a presentation on Camp Royal, which he has managed for the past nine years. After the presentation, Chuck was awarded the Rotarian of the Year award.

Peter Golombek, who is in charge of our International Youth Exchange Program, introduces all of our youth for the 2008-09 year. Each student paraded in carrying their home country's flag and winded their way throughout the crowd, quite an impressive display. If you were there, you would have been very proud to be a part of Rotary.

Many of the District's Clubs displayed their activities for the year.

The final evening seemed to start great. Anees ordered some beers and some oyster shots. We think that's where we got off to a bad start. Bob managed to power on throughout the night, and appeared to be having a good time until...........................................

.............the morning eventually arrived, and very BADLY!!!!

June 4th, 2009

Regular Club Meeting

Mike Clancy inducts our newest Member, Gary Giraudi into Visalia Breakfast Rotary. Gary is the Manager of Miller Memorial Chapel in Visalia. Welcome to the Club Gary and we are looking forward to working with you.

Anees Akhund and Dru Quesnoy open our program this morning discussing our HeartSafe Community Program. Ten years ago, while sitting at a table with a bunch of VBR leaders, Anees and Dru came up with the idea to have a Golf Tournament and Crabfeed to be our primary fundraiser. At last year's event, we raised more than $107,000 and, over the years, we have donated more than 115 defibrillators around the community and have saved lives.

Lorraine McElroy has been managing our fleet of working defibrillators and discusses the successes of the program as part of our HeartSafe Community program.

During the presentation Lorraine brought with her some defibrillators and a couple extra audience members.