In this Issue

John Martinka introduced Janis Machala. Janis leads the Bellevue College’s continuing education division, which provides market-driven programs, certificates, and corporate engagements that deliver professional training and lifelong learning for the Eastside community.

Speaker Program

John Martinka introduced Janis Machala.

Janis opened by giving us a few statistics about Bellevue College. Bellevue College is the largest community college in Washington and the largest transfer college. It employs 1,500 people, with 350 actively engaged faculty in continuing education. There are 37,000 students at Bellevue College, with 9,600 seeking a degree. The Continuing Education Program serves 12,000 students from 20-somethings to retirees. The Program is self-supporting as it receives no money from the State of Washington. It is the largest continuing education program in Washington. The Continuing Education Programs includes the following components:

• Certificate Programs that have been designed by working professionals for working professionals that offer hands-on instruction in current skills that transfer directly to the workplace

• The Business Training Institute, which provides training that helps corporations and non-profits to increase productivity, attract new customers or constituents, and become more competitive

• The TELOS Program, which offers fascinating courses of interest to retirees

Opportunities for community engagement include mentoring, executives in residence, corporate on-site training, market development and internships and jobs.

Janis is particularly proud of the Occupational & Life Skills (OLS) program, which helps students with cognitive disabilities. There are 50,467 people in King County with cognitive disabilities and only 12,849 of them are employed. The OLS program is turning these people into productive members of society. One of them remarked, “Before this program, I never had friend.” It takes them four years to attain an AA degree and at $425 per credit, the program is expensive. Janis is planning to build a scholarship program for OLS. She’s also thinking about offering it to other colleges using a franchise model.

For those Rotarians who are thinking about teaching at Bellevue College, Janis encouraged them to complete the Course Proposal form which can be found at http://www.bellevuecollege.edu/ce/teaching-for-bellevue-college-continuing-education/

Club Business

Scott Sadler called the meeting to order at 7:30am.

Invocation and Introduction of Visiting Rotarians and Guests

Dustin Walling gave the following invocation:

Help Me Thanksgiving Day Prayer

O God, when I have food,

help me to remember the hungry;

When I have work,

help me to remember the jobless;

When I have a home,

help me to remember those who have no home at all;

When I am without pain,

help me to remember those who suffer,

And remembering,

help me to destroy my complacency;

bestir my compassion,

and be concerned enough to help;

By word and deed,

those who cry out for what we take for granted.

Amen.

-Samuel F. Pugh

Linda DeStephano introduced visiting Rotarians and guests.

Rotary Foundation

Kim Shrader thanked everyone who already donated to the Rotary Foundation this year. Like last year, he is striving for 100% participation by the Club. He spoke about the Every Rotarian Every Year (EREY) program – every Rotarian donates to the Rotary Foundation every year. He acknowledged the Rotary Foundation Committee and the team captains. The team captains are responsible for calling those who haven’t yet donated. There will be a drawing for wine in early December and all who donated to the Rotary Foundation this year will be eligible.

Rotary Youth Exchange

Ann Norman gave a presentation on Rotary Youth Exchange. Rotary International has run the Youth Exchange program since 1929 and sponsors about 9,000 students on exchange to foreign countries every year.

This year, District 5030 is sponsoring students from Germany, Taiwan, El Salvador, Thailand, Sweden, France and Ecuador. The BBRC is sponsoring the young man from Germany, who is currently staying with Rourke O’Brien and Sayoko Kuwahara who treat him like one of their sons. In addition to inbound students, District 5030 also sponsors outbound students. Last summer, Danielle Kremen spent a month in Spain and then her host sister came here for a month.

The Department of State promotes the Youth Exchange program through different organizations so that students and future leaders from other countries can learn about the US and students and future leaders from the US can learn about other countries.

When students go on an exchange, they cultivate friendships for the rest of their lives. More importantly, they become aware of the inner concerns, hopes and dreams of a family, a neighborhood, a city, a nation and a global community. Exposure to new cultures and customs is a powerful way to promote global understanding and peace.

A teenager like our exchange student from Germany needs to have a lot of confidence and show a lot of initiative to be selected for the exchange program. Most of the cost to participate in the program is paid by his parents (around $5,000). The host families provide housing and food and the Rotary Foundation provides some spending money since he is not allowed to work in the U.S.

Ann encouraged all of us to spend some time with our German exchange student

Giving Tree

Opening to the tune of All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, Colleen Turner appealed to the Club to choose a tag or two off of our Giving Tree. Tis the season to be as generous as we can be. The agencies represented include KITH, the Seattle Y, Hopelink and Childhaven. Gifts should be returned to Glendale no later than December 13; they should be unwrapped with the tag attached.

Reminiscing about the BBRC

In light of BBRC’s 28th anniversary, Scott acknowledged Doug Cameron, John Smolke, Dick Brown and Jim Owens as Charter

Members of the BBRC. He then asked Doug to tell the Club about how the BBRC was founded. In 1985, Norris Bevan from the Bellevue Noon Club convinced 14 people who didn’t know each other to think about joining Rotary. These 14 people, including Doug, John, Dick and Jim, got together to discuss the idea and decided they wanted to form a new Club. When they told Norris about their intentions, he thought it was a great idea but told them they needed 25 people in order to form a new Club. It didn’t take these 14 guys long to recruit an additional 11 and they were off and running with the Bellevue Noon Club as sponsor.

Lou Webb was the only BBRC Charter Member who had any Rotary experience so he was elected President and served for two years. Everybody served on numerous committees. Like today, the BBRC was a high-energy Rotary Club with a lot of projects brewing to raise money. One of the early projects involved selling poinsettias all over town. For the next money-raising endeavor, the Club members sold 30-lb. cases of strawberries. Then somebody had the bright idea to crush strawberries and add ice and soda to make a cooler. The strawberry crushing was done at Overlake Hospital, which donated body bags to hold the cooler concoction. Body bags – did I get that right? When the Health Dept. complained, the cooler concoction was moved to gas cans. Mmmm….the early BBRC members certainly didn’t lack originality.

Doug also talked about the Ugly Tie Contest, which got more outlandish as the years went by. Doug concluded by saying how much he appreciates the enduring playfulness of the BBRC.

Family Feud

In another commemoration of BBRC’s 28th anniversary, Paul Chapman decided to play Family Feud. He selected three veteran Rotarians, Chuck Barnes, Doug Cameron and Bob Mahoney to represent the Gray Team. He then chose three relatively new Rotarians, Tanya Franzen-Garrett, Megan Sweeters and Neil Bretvick to represent the Green Team.

It was amusing to listen to the two panels trying to guess the answers to Paul’s four questions about what happened in 1985:

1. What were the top five songs per Billboard Magazine in 1985?

2. What were the top five grossing movies in 1985?

3. What were the five most popular TV shows in 1985?

4. What were the top five NCAA teams in 1985?

We were then all served little cupcakes to celebrate BBRC’s anniversary.

Thought for the Week

“Thanksgiving dinners take 18 hours to prepare. They are consumed in 12 minutes. Half-times take 12 minutes. This is not a coincidence.” Erma Bombeck

About the Speaker