Demotion Party for Pannkaj Kummar

On June 6, the Irvine Spectrum Rotary club celebrated a wonderful year of Rotary with Pannkaj Kummar as their club's president (better known to club members as just “Kummar”). He did a great job of leading the club thorough these difficult times.

Club members had a grand time celebrating Kummar's demotion, feasting on club member Diane Braasch's delicious Indian foods and delighting on a ceremonial roast based on the popular “Slumdog Millionaire” game show…complete with incomprehensible questions and answers thought up by incoming president Gillian Bradshaw. The grand prize was a club donation in Kummar's name of 10,000 rupees to Polio Plus.

The Irvine Spectrum club continues to lead the District in per-capita giving of almost $500 per member, and is the second club in the District to achieve the coveted PH+1 status.

Club member Sean McDowell led the club’s effort to help sponsor a New Generation Club of younger folks who desire to improve their community through Rotary. They have met weekly since November and have been involved with many hands-on projects. They now have 14 members and will be chartered when they reach 20 members. Janet Wang led effort to start an Interact Club at Irvine’s Woodbridge High School.

Irvine Spectrum Rotary has grown by 4 members this year, and enjoys a weekly attendance of over 80%. The club supports a wide spectrum of community service projects such as providing dental checkups for kids entering school in Irvine; funding for research into cures for Cystic Fibrosis, Epilepsy, and Juvenile Diabetes; support for battered spouse shelters and homes for pregnant teens; the Irvine Senior Center; Working Wardrobes; RYLA and Reading by 9.

Internationally, Irvine Spectrum is participating with other District grants for fuel-efficient stoves to Central America, a school in Africa, musical instruments to Brazil and emergency equipment to Chile. This past year the club held it’s seventh and eighth international dental clinics in Ensenada, Mexico in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Ensenada Calafia.

Irvine Dental Screenings

by Ray Sanford

A marvelous group of volunteers came together this morning to provide free dental screening exams for lots of children who will be starting school in September. I'd like to thank everyone who helped with this community service project.

We saw over 110 families (probably around 125-130 kids) with 8 dentists and their assistants, two school nurses and a bunch of Rotarians and Assisteens. This is about 3 times more children than last year's event.

Parents with kids started arriving half an hour before the event's starting time and continued steadily right until we closed at noon. All of the dentists were kept busy the entire time.

The two IUSD school nurses did an amazing job of checking all the families in (and out), keeping track of everything and sorting the forms into the proper envelopes for each school. About half of the Irvine Spectrum Rotary Club participated.

The Irvine Assisteens did their usual perfect job of shepherding the families from check-in to the exams and then back to the check-out tables. Another group entertained the kids with coloring projects while their parents filled out the forms.

A special thanks to Todd Wardlaw, General Manager of the Corner Bakery in the Irvine Marketplace for donating gobs of goodies for all the volunteers. Corner Bakery has stepped up time and again to support our club's community service projects.

Evolution of Conservative Political Thought

This week's meeting was opened, not with a bang, but a splash! The coffee had been set up and ready to go when the table broke and suddenly we had hot coffee all over the floor!

President-elect Gillian ran to get more coffee and saved the day, as our arriving Rotarians pitched in, mopped up the mess and set up tables and chairs on the outside patio for the meeting. As a result we enjoyed our meeting under sunny blue skies overlooking the golf course. Life is good; so are our Rotarians.

The main speaker was Joe Brown, a former Mayor of Laguna Niguel, current council member and past president of the Rotary Club there. He spoke about the Evolution of Conservative Political Thought. His thoughts traced how conservative political thought was originally “less government and lower taxes” in theme. Over the years this has changed. It is now hard to distinguish the conservatives from the liberals. During the last 20 years the Evangelical Christian movement has played a major role in conservative thought and this seemed to have reached its apex during the George W. Bush administration.

Our past president's talk was presented by John Alcorn who, coincidently, was celebrating his birthday that day. He was president during 2005-06. He spoke of the work our club had done during Bob Larsen's term in India, and how many of the members traveled there to see their accomplishments in person during his term. Kris Khurana then lead the group to see other parts of the country. During John's term, our main fund raiser was the Golf Tournament. We worked on many other projects that year, including the Dental Clinic in Ensenada, and our membership increased by 9 members. It was a good year and he very much enjoyed his time as president.

The Liver Foundation

Our guest speaker this week was Jessica Goltermann. She came to tell us about the American Liver Foundation, and the upcoming Liver Walk for Life on June 27, and other fund raising events for their foundation. While there, she invited us to support their many efforts. It was very helpful to have Dr Paul also share some information about how Hepatitis B, a liver disease, can affect people.

The Past President's report today was given by Cisca Stellhorn. President from 2007-2008. Cisca opened her talk in the same manner she opened her meetings as president, by ringing a bell. During her year, each week was celebrated by a different bell and its story. Cisca has collected bells from all over the world in her travels, and we were never lacking for an interesting tale surrounding the collection.

One of the amazing items that year was the amount of grants and matching grants received by our club. This was due to a great deal of work by Ray Sanford and others. The club worked on Habitat for Humanity, Irvine Dental Clinic, Ensenada Dental Clinic, wheel chairs sent to Mexico, Reading by Nine, equipping a dental van for Dr. Tosier and trips to Ensenada. It was with many rewards.

Our fund raisers that year were the Cash Bash and a Golf Tournament. The golf tournament was in May, a month we get little rain. However, that year, there was a hail storm three minutes before the tee off! And then, half way through the game the tournament was stopped because of more rain. All the golfers came back to the club house and waited for it to clear. Something that never happens that time of year!

The International Convention that year was in LA. Cisca rounded up a bus and brought together 110 guests attending the convention from all over the world to a party at her home. It was a great opportunity for club members to meet and spend time with Rotary members from across the world world.

Epilepsy Alliance Freedom Walk

The Orange County Epilepsy Alliance Freedom Walk 2009 was held at Heritage Park in Irvine on Saturday, May 2nd. Tom & Sonya Mahony sponsored a team called Sean's Stompers in honor of their son, Sean, who has epilepsy. Sean's Stompers raised $5,485 and had 31 walkers, 8 of whom were Rotarians. In total the event raised $79,397 for epilepsy research, education and local assistance. "We were worried about rain on Saturday, but the sun was shining for epilepsy" said Sonya Mahony. You can still sponsor Sean's Stompers by going to the Epilepsy Alliance Freedom Walk website and making a pledge with your credit card to help stomp out epilepsy!

May 6th Meeting

Our first meeting in May was very well-attended by club members, who enthusiastically welcomed, among its other guests, Dr. Pai-Chou Tu, incoming governor of RI District 3500, and past president of our sister club—Taoyuan West.

Paul Harris Awards

Harry Gabriel is now a Paul Harris Fellow +1


Sean McDowell becomes a Paul Harris Fellow


Janet Wang receives her latest Paul Harris Award

Don Kennedy

Donald R. Kennedy is the newest member of the Irvine Spectrum Rotary Club.

The Docs

Today we were honored to have our two medical doctors in the club, Dr Paul Strodtbeck MD and Dr. Bob Larsen MD, answer questions from club members. Members could submit questions by email, or ask them at the meeting. It was a fun, exciting meeting. Everything was asked from, "what should I do if my Doctor makes me wait 2 hours?" ( If you don't like it, change Doctors) to… "do vitamin pills really help?" ( You can get the vitamins you need from the food you eat…however if you feel they help, take them.) Members stayed late to ask more questions; many requested we have them give a similar talk every couple of months. It was truly enjoyed by the members.

Costa Mesa Dental Clinic

Photos from the Rotarians at Work project with the Costa Mesa Rotary Club and the Newport Mesa Unified School District to provide a free dental screening for all children entering the schools. Even the "tooth fairy" showed up.