Russell Hampton
National Awards Services Inc.
Sage
The Rotary Club of Ojai
Reminder Newsletter
September 23rd, 2016
 
Welcome
 

President Bill Gilbreth enthusiastically rang the bell at 12:12pm to indicate the meeting of the Rotary Club of Ojai was about to begin.  To welcome back Bob Daddi after a long absence, he was chosen to lead us in the flag salute.  Next, Ian stepped up to the microphone to lead us in an invocation in which he gave thanks for all our many blessings.  And with that, a buffet lunch was served.

At 12:30, President Bill rang the bell again.  I think he enjoys doing that!  This kicked off the main portion of our meeting today.  For the first order of business, Bill thanked everyone who helped with the meeting including Marc Whitman who filled in for our Sergeant at Arms, Matt Clements, Wendy Barker and Frank Finck greeted everyone with a friendly smile, Bob Daddi for the flag salute, Ian for the invocation, Judy Gabriel handled the roving mic, Tony Thacher manned the check-in table, Jenny Owen diligently took notes by hand for the Reminder, and last but certainly not least, Ginger Case, our hostess and fellow traveler!

Visitors

We were light on visitors today as the only visitors were our speaker, Lanny Kaufer and his wife Rondia.

Announcements

Since September 30 is the fifth Friday of the month, we will be dark so don’t come for the luncheon meeting because we won’t be here!  This reminded Bill of a joke about one of his law school professors, Carl Jaffe.  Carl was a wonderful scholar, but he was also the all-time absent minded professor. 

Over breakfast one morning, Carl’s wife reminded Carl that they recently sold their house and were moving that day so when Carl came home later, he was to go to the new house.  Well, as Carl’s wife expected, Carl went home to the old house after work that day.  Seeing that the house was empty of furniture, Carl asked a little boy he spotted in the neighborhood if he knew where the Jaffe family was.  The little boy nonchalantly said, “Mom said you’d forget Dad.  Come on, let’s go to our new house.”!

But never fear!  We will have a 5th Friday Social on the patio next to the bar at Soule Park.  The time is 5:30-7:30pm, and the cost is $15 per person for hor d’oeuvres and there will be a no host bar.  Bill asked for a show of hands of people who planned to attend and about 30 hands went up.

Catherine Lee is still on a leave of absence but she came to the meeting today because she missed us!  She is in the process of opening a new retirement community in Carpinteria and has been attending the Thursday noon Rotary meeting in Carp.  She recently went to France with some friends from college and spoke of what a wonderful vacation it was.

Bill called on Lerie to give us an update on our club’s progress with the District Governor’s challenge for each member in the district to donate $26.50 to TRF before October 15.  We want to be a club that has 100% participation in this challenge!  Lerie thinks we will make it since we are so close – about 90% of us have donated so far!

Wendy Barker is asking for donations for the Taste of Ojai silent auction and Don Reed gave us the good news that he can now accept credit and debit cards to pay for our Taste of Ojai tickets.

Ren Adams reminded us that Saturday, September 24 is shred day at Ojai Community Bank.  I meant to take my two boxes of paper to be shredded but I forgot!

Finally, there will be a Membership Committee meeting immediately following the regular luncheon meeting today.

 

 

 

 

Confessions and Fining

There was a rousing applause for Dr. Bruce Brockman as he came forward to collect donations by way of confessions and fines.

To start things off, Amani confessed that she celebrated her 27th wedding anniversary by taking a trip to Napa.  Also, she is busy opening a new pharmacy in Ventura.

Don Reed confessed that his grandson, a senior at Thacher School, recently hiked over the ridge behind Ojai 3 times in 11 hours!  That’s quite a hike!

Frank Finck told us that his wife fell and broke a rib, at least I think that is what happened!  Frank told a longer story but I couldn’t tell which part of the story was true and which part was made up.

Dr. Skankey honored Amani for quietly donating many medications to the Roatan and Niger projects over the years.

The final confession came from past president Suzanne Scar for her 11th wedding anniversary.

With a hodge-podge of historical questions related to birthdays, Dr. Brockman was able to stump Bob Daddi, John Lyon, Smitty, Catherine Lee, Deidre, Dave Watson, Marc Whitman, and Ron Wilson.  But, he couldn’t stump Dr. Carl Gross with a question about Ford history!

Program

 
 
 

Lanny Kaufer (www.herbwalks.com) has been leading Herb Walks — interpretive native plant walks and nature hikes — in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties of Southern California since 1976.  As for his formal education background, he graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1974 with a degree in Biology. While there, he did extensive independent studies in the field of naturopathic medicine (under the supervision of Dr. Henry Hilgard) and worked in the UCSC ArFboretum. He taught Science, Health and Natural History to middle school and high school students at Santa Paula High School, Happy Valley School, Ojai Valley School, Mountain View High School and Renaissance Continuation High School.  He also served as Outdoor Education Director for Happy Valley School and Education Director for The C.R.E.W. (Concerned Resource and Environmental Workers) and was a co-founder of the Sunbow Ecology Center.  He recently retired from teaching Science and Special Education at Santa Paula High School.

For a video presentation click here.

Lanny acquired much of his knowledge in field study and collaboration with well-known herbalists and ethnobotanists and has co-led workshops, walks, and expeditions with noted herbalists such as the late Chumash plant expert Juanita Centeno, the late Michael Moore, Michael Tierra, Amanda McQuade Crawford, the late Sidney Yudin, and more recently with Dr. Fred Siciliano, Chumash educator Julie Tumamait, and Dr. Jim Adams of the USC School of Pharmacology.

His talk today was titled “Useful Plants of the Southern Los Padres” and it was a whirl wind tour of plan communities of the Southern Los Padres.

Lanny started at the lower elevations with Coastal Sage Scrub.  These plants are popular with pollinators such as butterflies and bees, and they like our Mediterranean climate.  Some edible examples are black sage seeds which are delicious and elderberry juice which has medicinal benefits against the flu.

Next up is the Chaparral Plant Community which gives us chia sage and chia seeds.

The Riparian Plan Community is found along creeks and rivers.  Needless to say, ours have been shrinking.  This is where the Coast Live Oak lives, which gives us acorns, the most important food source for the Chumash.  Another plan found in this community is the cattail.

Further up in elevation is the Pinon Plan Community and finally, Yellow Pine Forest at 7000+ feet in elevation.

Lanny will be leading a hike on Saturday, September 24 on Pine Mountain from 9am to 4pm.  Also, there will be a Fall Medicinal Plant Weekend on October 22-23 with Dr. James Adams of USC School of Pharmacy.

Lanny finished his talk promptly at 1:30. President Bill gave a closing thought appropriate for this political season and joyfully ran the bell to indicate the close of the meeting.  With that, we went out into the Ojai heat to continue on with our day and the weekend ahead.

 
 
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