Last week’s meeting provided an interesting program with new members Donna Smith and Don Williams giving craft talks. Donna is a family law attorney recently moved to Nevada City from the Bay Area and talked about her mediation and family practice, featuring “Divorce with a Difference” a collaborative approach to marital dissolution with participation by other professionals to help her clients make the divorce process less painful and an opportunity for healing and new growth. Dr. Don Williams told of his satisfaction with healing and new growth in his chiropractic practice. A native of Venice, California Don developed his interest in healing the body from a life-long interest in sports and a high school football injury. After many successful years in LA, including a practice with such celebrity clients as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bob Dylan, Don moved to our community to establish his thriving practice here. Thanks to Donna and Don for providing an interesting program.
We also had our Radio Auction kick-off last Thursday. Put March 20th in your calendar for the event, which will be at the Stonehouse this year (the Superintendent of School’s office was booked). Put March 19th in your calendar, too, for the dry run the night before. If you missed Thursday’s meeting, please check with Auction Co-Chairs Nancy Kemp or Gary Gustafson to get your packet. We are asking that you try to land again the donations we received from your contacts in the past (if you are new, we can assign you donors recruited by former members of our club), and that you try to land at least one new donor this year (or become one yourself). This is our key fundraiser for the year and raises $25k of our $60k annual budget and we cannot sell what we don’t get donated. Please do your share so we can restore our scholarship budget to the historic level of $15k per year – we had to cut it to $12k in this year’s budget to account for expected difficulty fundraising in this environment.
Speaking of scholarships, we had a good presentation from Liz Zapata, one of our Drew Reynolds Scholars. We were proud of Liz when she made the jump from Sierra College to Chico State. Now we’ve learned that one of her professors is recommending her for admission to Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences to pursue a master’s degree in statistics. It has been a pleasure to hear her reports each year and to observe her growing poise and self-confidence. Hooray for Liz! We’re proud of you and thrilled to have played a supporting role!
Rotary International is hard at work making a difference in Haiti. Our club will participate in the Shelter Box effort there. If you are interested in helping, talk to International Service Chair and President Elect Nominee Carolyn Inglis or Community Service Chair Cathy Wilcox-Barnes. Membership Co-chairs Walt Stickel and Austin Farrar are asking each Club member to give them ten business cards. They will provide a set of business cards for our entire Club membership to our 10 new members for the current year. Bring your cards to the meeting!
Our program this Thursday is hosted by George Foster and will feature retired banker Fred Buhler discussing his recent visit on behalf of the US government to review Iraq’s post-war banking system. This will be an interesting program, so don’t miss it! See you for lunch!
