Chief President Pat opened the meeting today after being serenaded by his Chaplin, Deacon Jay.  Frank Kawase led us in the Pledge to our Flag and Mark Geiss honored us with several Lincoln sayings, the best of which is loosely paraphrased as “A person will be as happy as they make up their mind to be.”  What a great way to begin our meeting.  We were then led in a rollicking rendition of a Rotary song and Smile by Reverend Leroy Fulton.

Visitors included:

JoAnn Ludwig who found out it was her anniversary gift from Don.  Mr. Ludwig, we all though your anniversary was August 15^th, not only are we now questioning the quality of the gift, but also the timeliness.

Dick Jones’ much better half, Norma was welcomed today.

Cathy Gach introduced us to her husband Don.  They are celebrating the freedom from 2000 highschoolers this Christmas Holiday!

Welcome to all the Rotary spouses and thank you for helping them to be such an active part of our community!

Congratulations to our Newest Members!

Mike Oates, Ray Hansen, Jim Williams, and Zoot Velasco were called up to accept responsibility for our four Newest Nine Members!  Welcom to Ted Kim from Grace Ministries, Ned Doffeney our local community college Chancellor, Don Landers who is a transferring member from Visalia and Lt. in the CSUF police force and Duwayne Greenleaf from Colette’s Catering.  Hey Duwayne, can we talk about Filet Mignon and Baked Alaska next week?  Welcome to you all!

Guests as introduced by J. Richey:

Diane Masseth-Jones introduced us to Patrick Brewer from Sam’s Club and Theresa Harvey introduced Chris Reese from CSUF (Yeah!) Community Affairs.

Announcements by Cathy Gach:

• Promote your business and support the Rotary Club of Fullerton.  We have color ads this year for our concern program and if you are interested, contact Deborah Sanchez at (714) 404-4483 or Theresa Harvey at (714) 871-3100.
• Read Across America Day is being sponsored this year by Jeff and Debbie Hutchison for Orangethorpe School on Monday, March 2^nd.  If you are interested in being a volunteer to read to students on this special day, please RSVP to Debbie by February 24^th at Debbie_hutchison@fsd.k12.ca.us and thank you!
• 4/24/09 - Mark your calendars for our Rotary Concert, featuring country and western singer Peter Brandon.  Pull out your jeans and cowboy hats for a night of “hootin’ and hollerin’.  See Winston Creel for tickets and Rick Price for the purchase of a table.
• 2/27/09 is the YWCA Chocolate Fantasy honoring Buck and Bobbie Catlin as Man and Woman of the Year.  See Diane Masseth-Jones for tickets.
• Allyn Lean thanked the membership for its generous donation of $16,250 to the International Foundation, but would love a full compliment of givers from our membership.  He will be happy to speak with you at any time day or night to achieve that goal.  Help him please…he is trying to live up to prior foundation chair Walter Barnes and has a tough road to hoe.

• A thank you from President Pat goes out to Mike Oates, Dan Ouweleen, Ken Kaisch and Vimal Seth for their work with International Outreach in Korea.
• 3/21/09 is our All City Track Meet as announced by Mark Geiss.  Bob Radde has the T-Shirts.  We can each help underwrite the event by buying a T-shirt from the school of our choice for a small donation of $20.00.  See Mark for volunteer opportunities and a chance to socialize with Jim Thompson.

Finemaster Bob Sattler:

Birthdays included Bill Goetsch, Deborah Koff, Theresa Prado, Diedre Kinsey, Bill Hite; and Dan Kiernan celebrated his 109^th anniversary with his wonderful wife Ann.  (Yes fellow members, Dan and Ann tied the knot on February 9^th 1900!  They are now in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest marriage on record.

Recognized by Finemaster Bob were Bob Radde and Allison Radde for being a member on the All County Track Team as a Sophomore.  Bill Kincaid was thanked for starting the concert fundraiser in his presidency with John Raitt in 1990.  We are in our 19^th year!  Bill Mathy, Don Ludwig, Winnie Houston, Wally Swatkowski, Mike Oates and Mark Geiss all shared the privilege of joining Rotary during Finemaster Bob’s year as president in 1996/1997.  They were fine free for the day.  Bill McGarvey intimidated Bob Sattler, but Bob really appreciated the notes received from Bill cheering him on during that year.  Finemaster Bob then went on to exhibit pictures from his presidency and collect fines from Jeff Hutchison for wearing short, shorts at the Fullerton South Softball Game, Nate Kvetney and Dick Bartosch (posthumously) for bowling in ties, Jimmy Williams for being younger and thinner and Jim Young for no reason at all.  I think it might have been our most lucrative fine day yet t his year!

Ticket #813463 was pulled giving Jimmy Williams with the aid of Bill Schenk a chance to identify Jack Lord as the head detective on the show “Hawaii 5-0”. Appropriately enough $50 was won by Mr. Williams for providing this information.

Program:

A State of the Condition of Residential Real Estate was provided to us by Bob Clark, Jr. with statistics about Fullerton’s real estate marketplace, then and now as well as trending of pricing and sales for the past two years.  Bob has some great information to enjoy over a good glass of red wine and a cigar at his place.  We think an Open House would be a suitable follow-up to this great presentation.  How about it Bob!

The meeting was closed by President Pat with this thought…well, you had to be there.  We will see you next week and have a sunny and bright weekend!