In preliminary comments, Prez Bill commended the entire Jog-A-Thon team for a job superbly done. The meeting started with invocation conducted by Past President Ray Hansen, followed by the flag salute led by Scott Dowds. The song leader of the day, Randy Mc Farland, led the assemblage in America the Beautiful followed by Smile.

A plethora of recognitions were handed out by the inimitable Past President Phil Silverman. Starting off, Phil recognized Tony Fabelo for his 29th anniversary and Vern Andrews for his 55th anniversary. Bill Mathy somehow got included as a result of last week's preemption action. Bill, who is in charge of all this recognition stuff, took the opportunity to reiterate the instructions that birthdays and anniversaries are to be recognized from the day of the meeting, always a Wednesday until the following Tuesday, so that the recognition master can start off confident that he/she is not duplicating something that was done the prior week. Next on Phil’s list was Dan Kiernan for requesting a redraw of the tickets last week, which cost him two dollars President Bill Schenk was recognized for wearing one of his 52 Rotary shirts, with another two dollars from past Presidents Wimer, Lean, and Dowds. It somehow related to them being fortunate enough to visit exotic foreign locales for the Rotary international convention as part of their presidency, while the esteemed Finemaster ended up visiting Indianapolis prior to his year of service. Apologies to any Hoosiers out there. Next victim up on Phil's hit list was Drew Napolin, who despite being full of beans has lost 20 pounds which, under the mysterious formula constituting the hierarchy of fines was worth double the amount that 29 years and 55 years of marriage was valued at. Next, Don Bankhead for five dollars because Phil could not find anything to recognize him for anymore. Bill Hite was recognized cause wife, Vickie, has retired from Costco after a long tenure. A picture of a hirsute unrecognizable Jim Blake, of Duck Dynasty infamy, was worth a mere two dollars. Then Phil got Grif Duncan on for unearthing a 45 RPM recording made at the Rhythm Room. Another two dollars was extracted from Wolf Knabe for painting a fire truck pink in recognition of Cancer Awareness month Lastly, Zoot, two dollars for being let out of prison, which quickly escalated to five dollars after dialogue.

Today we had eight announcements. In order of presentation:

1. Jim Williams reminded us that the celebration of Jim and Dottie Young will occur next week at a specially organized Rotary program.

2. Vern Andrews again reminded the membership that the Fullerton Rotary Foundation continues to seek applications for endowment fund gifts for a major projects. The final due date for submission of applications is October 29th.

3. Theresa Harvey announced a Fullerton Chamber of Commerce mixer hosted by Terry Grassi and J Ritchie on November 2, and another and event are being hosted by Scott Dowds relating to economics, and also announced a meeting on November 5 at the Brea Civic Center, the day after the elections, featuring political pundit Barbara Stone, See, call, email or fax Theresa for more details regarding these events.

4. George Giokaris, on behalf of the Fullerton Joint Union High School District gave the Jog-A-Thon project an A+.

5. Susan Smith asked us to visit the new Northwest Tower of St. Jude's at an open house that will display its features to the public. The event is scheduled for November 8th from 11 to 2.

6. Meg Crider announced that 25 to 30 vendors have signed up for a technology in education display that will occur on Wednesday, November 12th from 3:30 to 6:30 at Troy High School. She encouraged everyone to support it and attend.

7. Larry Bennett received a sincere compliment relating to the positive effects that The Rotary Club of Fullerton has on the community, with specific reference to the Rotary healthcare event of that our club sponsors. The woman handing out the complement, who opposes his political positions on almost every issuewanted him to know and to pass on to the members of the Fullerton Rotary just how valuable the services are to the community (so he must be a little okay).

8. Past President Terry Grassi reminded all who had who have signed up for the Los Alamitos races that they have received all information by email and check her with if they have not.

The Coach, the General, Ike – whatever…Dan Ouweleen reported that over 40 high school clubs participated this year and we turned out 70 volunteers to put on this major hands-on fund raiser. It was a fantastic Fellowship Day that will result in funds amounting to about $70,000 going into the community and toward Polio Plus.

The program was introduced by Jay Kremer. Pastor Kirk Mackie is a member of the Rotary South club. He has been in the pastor at Wilshire Avenue Community Church in Fullerton for 18 years. The church has adopted, as part of its outreach, a village in Guatemala, Colonia Noruega. After being seriously ill a successful U.S. businessmen, Carlos Vargas, is fulfilling his promise to God to devote to the balance of his life of improving conditions in his native country. He started Hope of Life and purchased a 3000 acre site that houses a seminary, orphanage, medical clinic and other support facilities. Pastor Mackie pointed out that Guatemala is the second neediest country in the Western Hemisphere, right behind Haiti. The Wilshire Avenue Community Church is working hard to meet the challenge of partnering, but not doing all the work for the impoverished residents of Colonia Noruega. Pastor Mackie is reaching out in Orange County hoping to garner assistance from others to meet the challenge of the church to develop a deep relationship with the Guatamalan community that will make a meaningful long lasting difference to the residents of Colonia Noruega while enriching the volunteers lives at the same time.

Opportunity drawing winner, Frankie Berry, with a one in four chance to pick the winning chip, was a losing winner having pulled a white chip instead of the elusive red ship from the black bag. The pot which was $291 is now growing exponentially and should exceed $350 by next week's meeting. A ticket bought next week at 1 in 3 will have great leverage from all the prior weeks that white chips have emerged from the bag so far. Go for it!

Prez Bill, succumbing to pressure from the District big wigs, asked Cathy Gach to lead us in the THE 4 WAY TEST. The TRUTH is she did an admirable job that was FAIR even to those who had to read it. By reciting in unison we build GOOD WILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS that are BENEFICIAL to all concerned.