On December 4, 2019, our club held its Annual Holiday Program at Mt Vernon Elementary School. We continued our wonderful, annual tradition this year with our members, Centennial Interactors, Kern County Rotaractors and our Rotary Exchange student, Caludia (from Spain). Everyone enjoyed hot chocolate, cookies, music, making cards for the troops and we held our ugly Christmas swearter contest. Everyone there enjoyed themselves. 

Our Centennial High Interact Club held a Cat People event today. The volunteers made cards and spent time giving some cats lots of love. Great job Interactors.

We met on the evening of December 18, 2019, as we do every Wednesday at The Mark Restaurant and Bar for our weekly meeting. This weeks speaker was Ms. Dianne Hoover who is the Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Bakersfield.

Centennial High School's Interact Club held its 2020 Winter Board Retreat by getting away to fresh, crisp air, nature, snow and special bonding at Piute Mountain Ranch. Of course, our own, Li Gibbs, and her wonderful husband, Steven Gibbs, were there too.

 

On January 8, 2020, we met for our 18th regular Rotary meeting of the Rotary year at our usual meeting place, The Mark Restaurant & Bar. President Nancy had forgotten to assign club duties for this meeting. She randomly picked people to do each duty and as a helpful President, she helped each person to perform his or her duty. She even gave Manuel a printout to read for the Inspirational Moment which was a message from Governor Savi. She also announced that a new memeber, Ashley Diaz, will be joining our club. She encouraged everyone to sign up to read at Mt Vernon Elementary School. Amy announced that the concert fundraiser idea is off the table. After her and Cecil's meeting with Crystal Palace it became apparent that the cost is too much especially for a club of our size. A new idea is being kicked around which will take place at the Bakersfield Museum of Art since that venue is free to us. Thanks Amy. We then played "I spy" about all the things we have done in our club so far this year. Robin won, but we still don't know what she won. President Nancy then went through the goals that were set for our club at the beginning of the Rotary year and we have already met most of our goals. We may be small, but we are mighty. Jeremy then decided to do "sad bucks" instead of "happy bucks." In doing so, he gave us all two pieces of advice: don't play fantasy football and don't bet with a friend. Apparently, he lost to his friend by a very little margin. As a result, he now has to listen to an entire Yoko Ono album and the last track is 17 minutes.

At our meeting on November 20, 2019, our President, Nancy Pollard, indicated that our club has won the District membership award due to our club having positive membership numbers instead of losing members. Our speaker was Victoria "Vicci" Brown snyder, BA, MPA, who spoke to us about Family History and Lineage Societies. She started her journey down the road of genealogy looking for her own family history. Her search led her to the Brown family in Illinois. She found her father's family going back to 1600. She was able to have her mother introduced to four cousins she had never met. According to Vicci, looking for your family history all starts with you obviously. Resources to look for your family include internet, newspapers, achives, ancestry.com, findagrave.com and other online resources. Thirty years of researching her own family has led to 71 pages of pedigree chart going back to 1530. She also pointed out that it's important to have citations such as birth marriage and death records, census records, obituaries, headstones, family bible, and newspaper articles. Various people will put down on myheritage.com their belief about their families without any proof and no one ever goes back and corrects them. So, it is very important that people have citations to their family history so that it can be confirmed. Finally, Vicci pointed out something very cool. Apparently, our own, Garrett Colatruglio, is in the Sons of the American Revolution because, on his mother's side, he has family members who served in the Revolutionary War.

The groundbreaking ceremony at Covey Cottages was held on the morning of November 12, 2019.  This is the Kern County Rotary all-Club project that our Club is helping to fund by providing money to build the Common Room. There will be 12 homes (400 sq. ft. each) which will be rented to homeless veterans. The Common Room will have the laundry facilities and a meeting and gathering space. Outside, there will be space for a bar-b-q area and we hope, a community garden. Others who attended the event this morning were organizations and people helping fund the project and others who are providing in-kind services for the construction, landscaping, and furnishings. Several public officials (or their representatives) were there, as well as residents who live in the near-by neighborhood. The Kern County Rotary Club Presidents who attended the event were so pleased to see the 1^st step of the construction phase begin.

 

This is the link to the site plan and an article that was in the Bakersfield Californian newspaper in September about this project:

 

 

 

Kern County Rotarians, including Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh (2^nd from left, member of Rotary Club of Bakersfield [Downtown]); Assistant Governor Group 2, Jackie Maxwell (4^th from the left, member of Rotary Club Bakersfield Breakfast); Bakersfield City Council member, Ward 2 Andrae Gonzales (6^th from left/behind me); Rotary District 5240 Governor Savi Bhim (5^th from the right, member of Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise)

At our meeting on November 13, 2019, our past-President, Jeremy Swanson, spoke about his job with the District as a District Parliamentarian. His job is to make sure all protocols are followed in the District. He advises on procedural issues. His biggest job is to attend the elections and make sure that it is administered correctly according to the bylaws. His job is to make sure that everyone gets a fair shot in all elections.

 

Speaker Mike Stepanovich is a wine teacher, expert and judge. He is also an adjunct professor at California State University in Bakersfield. He started his journey to becoming a wine expert when he lived and went to college in Sacramento and he would venture to Napa wineries. He eventually became the wine writer for the Californian. In July of 1987, he finally gave in and agreed to be a wine judge. For the last 32 years, he has been judging wine competitions and he explained to all of us how judging works including what foods he likes to eat to keep his pallets fresh and in shape to judge. Contrary to popular belief, he says that they do not actually swallow the wine. He also told us that he created the DNPIM (Do Not Put In Mouth) label for those wines that do not taste good at all when he is judging.

 

At our regular club meeting on November 6, 2019, Mr. Josh Dhanes from the Kern County Veterans' Services spoke about his time in the military and his military training. He gave us an insight into the services and advocacy that is provided to our Kern County Veterans and their families. Those services are not limited to just Veterans in the Bakersfield area, but they provide services throughout our vast County. They often try to meet with Veterans in the far reaches of our County rather than making them travel to Bakersfield. They try real hard to explain to all Veterans the benefits that they are entitled to and why they are not entitled to certain benefits under the law.