President Kathryn Scroggin
President Kathryn first welcomed our Zoom participants - Bruce Bromberg, Dan Gesell and B.J. Anderson. Then, picking up on Stephanie's theme, she talked about how our Club is a committed group doing wonderful things in the community.
Kathryn shared the news that both Bill Fox and David Hart are in the hospital. There's no update on Bill and we are told that David is improving. Our prayers go out for their quick recovery. She also shared the unfortunate news that Greg Gonzales's mother passed away. The Club shares our deepest condolences. Kathryn thanked Mike Sidlinger, Bob Whalen, Bob Bibb and John Bagnall for helping Greg out at his mother's service.
Next on Kathryn's list was a reminder about the upcoming District Conference in Santa Barbara starting January 28th thru the 30th. There will be a gala Saturday night, the 29th. Come one, come all!
She then announced an upcoming Club spring event on May 28th, 2022. This one day Music Festival will be put on in place of the Cajun Festival. It will be a daytime event similar to the Oktoberfest we just held. Tim Gray and John Bagnall will be Co-Chairs so we're in good hands.
Kathryn closed by asking us to take the time over the Holidays to reflect on moments from this past year. She has and wanted to share a couple of those moments with us. One happened on a Saturday morning at 9:00 AM. She was invited to participate in a Zoom meeting at Royal High dealing with Service to Others and she spoke about Rotary. The organizers weren't sure how many participants they would have but 123 students showed up for the call. They were enthusiastic and wanted to hear about service and Rotary and how they, as students, could help. Very refreshing she said.
Another moment occurred Tuesday at Apollo High School where she participated on a panel representing Rotary. The young people gave Kathryn hope she said and for that she's grateful.
Kathryn ended by saying that what we Rotarians do would not be possible if not for the foundations laid by the forebears of our country. She even put this notion to print a couple of years ago as a 14 year old. She wrote a paper then about Thanksgiving and how it came about. She won an award for the paper and it ended up in the Chicago Tribune. For a small donation, she will share that paper with you AND a picture of her as a 14 year old.
Kathryn's challenge to us this week is give Thanks to each other for who we are and for what we do each and every day.
