July 27, 2022
A very special thanks to all who made this week’s program a true success. Setting the stage for an entertaining meeting was the “Joe Cheer Squad” led by David Rosenfeld, Pam Brady, and Karin Wallerstein with pom poms in hand. Thanks to Karin Wallerstein and Charlie Follette for greeting everyone, Carol Jackson led our patriotic song and pledge with Ken Waltzer supplying the music. Rounding out our head table were David Rosenfeld with invocation, Paul Leoni as president’s pick, Rose Mary Regalbuto introduced our Speaker, Mark Slavkin, and Daniel Bennet was our guest introducer. Rose Mary and Daniel teamed up with our welcome song.
Ken reeved it up with a special sing along video of Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” performed by a group of children. The meeting success often rest in the hands of those serving the back table Stan Fox, Carol Powell, Pam Brady, and Ms. “Everywhere” Karin Wallerstien.
Carole Stein completed all her Red Badge assignments and received her permanent membership badge. We did have a couple of fines: Past President, Paul Leoni for the front-page article featuring him in the Santa Monica Star where it was reported that “Paul loved volunteering, so much so, that he was awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award after completing over 4,000 hours of community service in his lifetime.” David Rosenfeld was also fined for a lengthy explanation of a make-up visit to a club while in Brazil on vacation only to find the club location was locked when he arrived. His creative explanation of cause of a closed building involved our immediate Past President, Bill Powell. Both men are so loyal to our club fines were reduced to none.
Donna Byrd and her team facilitated celebrating birthdays of our fellow Rotarians with gifts of sweets.
Our Program of the Day was Mark Slavkin who made a passionate presentation for “Arts in Education”. Mark grew up in Los Angeles in a family dedicated to public service and helping others. From an early age he was drawn to politics and government and was privileged to have wonderful opportunities in Washington, DC, Sacramento, and Los Angeles County government. Mark was elected to the Los Angeles Board of Education at the age of 27 and served on the school board for 8 years representing West Los Angeles and the West Valley. Always supportive of arts education during time on the board.
He has served in organizations with an emphasis on promoting Arts Education to youth. He served as the Los Angeles Program Officer for the Getty Education Institute, later he became Vice President of Education for the Music Center. He later joined the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts as Director of Education.
Mark’s passion for Arts Education was demonstrated in his presentation while expressing the need to keep Education for the Arts in the forefront of all Californians. He also answered many questions about how we can continue to serve the community of youth while educating them in the Arts.
THIS WEEK’S ROTARY PROGRAM July 29th is ONLY ON ZOOM
Presenter: Eric Nusbaum & Ira Waldman
“Stealing Home – Baseball the L.A. Dream”
A story about baseball, family, the American Dream, and the fight to turn Los Angeles into a big-league city.
Host Rotarian Introducer: Mitchell Kraus
UPCOMING: August 5th Live @ HILTON
Fire Chief Danny Alvarez – “The State of The Santa Monica Fire Department”
Host Rotarian Introducer: Tom Larmore
- District Governor, Olivia Patterson-Ryans visits our club on Friday, August 12th.
- District Sunday Brunch is August 14th 1:00PM-3:00PM at The Proud Bird.
- District Humanitarian Trip to Belize is scheduled for March 16th – 23rd, 2023.
By the way there is a District-wide “Back to School Supply Drive” to benefit the low-income households attending Inglewood Unified School District. We have until August 12th to bring items you would like to donate to this cause to our Friday in-person meetings at the Hilton. Let’s show our District Governor how helpful we can be by through our effort to meet this need.
