"President Tim called the meeting to order at exactly 1215. Is this what engineers do...always prompt and never miss a beat? Wyn Spiller led us in the Pledge to our flag; Don Sheppard rendered a beautiful prayer; the Greeter was Dave Peeler; Don Daniels was the Assistant Sergeant of Arms; Fred Claessens was the photographer; and, yours truly the Scribe. There were no visiting Rotarians, and no guests period!

Steve Sarantopoulos presented an interesting Rotary Minute. He went longer than a minute in trying to explain the intricacies of the high tech Rotary world and Club Runner to our Club (some of we older members were a little dense). All you need to know is how to access our Club's web page by typing the URL which is www.gvrotary.org and a whole new Rotary world opens up. (If you are having difficulty getting the page to open in your browser - contact Steve, Pat or Kathy for assistance. Safari and Chrome are both reporting to be problematic.) Steve also provided the following election results for Rotary year 2014-15: Steve Spiller, President Elect; Bob Long, Vice President; Larry Faller, Secretary; Marcia Salter, Treasurer; and incoming Directors, Blake Smith, Peter Lemon, Lori Burkart Frank. Congratulations to all...John Voter expressed thanks from the Food Bank for our Club's generous donation which will feed 20 families this month! Salvation Army bell ringing went well last week except Don Daniels showed up late. He made up for it by working late. Thanks to Scott Browne and Rich Toothman for hosting the Club's Christmas party which was a great success.

There were a few confessions: According to President Tim, Don Daniels embarrassed him (somehow?) at an area President's meeting for which Don donated $15 to Polio Plus; Rod Fivelstad was fined because his picture was in the newspaper as the Director of the local Male Chorus; Carol Lenhard was lauded in a letter from Read to Your Child for her work on our Club's Literary Project. Under her direction our Club gave away over 900 books! Instead of a fine she was presented two Rotary pins and recognized for her 16 years of perfect attendance (is President Tim getting soft?); Valerie Logsdon confessed to a lengthy story of horses and cowboys for which she was fined $20; Blake Smith got hit for something and Jon Byerrum was fined $20 for the cardinal sin of losing his Rotary Pin. So much for the fines and confessions.

If you missed today's meeting you missed one of our better programs. Our Speaker was Tom Thompson of our local Red Cross Chapter (formerly 16 years with our local DMV office as its manager). He stated that the American Red Cross was en-chartered by Congress in 1905 and there are now 700 Chapters throughout the country with 1 million volunteers. Tom went on to describe what happens on a voluntary deployment such as his recent trip to the East Coast in support of the Hurricane Sandy effort. Usually in such massive natural emergencies local Red Cross volunteers assemble at a crisis site for a 14-21 day deployment. In the case of Sandy, Tom drove a truck for 12-14 hours a day carrying much needed supplies. There were around 70,000 homes affected by the storm and many people were, and some still are, in shelters. He described the extensive devastation, but also praised the good work of the many voluntary agencies such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army, as well as various participating State and Federal disaster oriented organizations.

Ken Holbrook's Club lottery number was drawn again (how many times? he should take his luck to Reno), but alas there's still a black marble somewhere in the pot...This week's Scribe, George Grayeb."