In the Beginning...
The welcome rain could not keep away our intrepid President Bill Gilbreth, nor the hearty men and women of Ojai Rotary. The room was packed with umbrellas and happy well-wishers, when Prez Bill rang the bell to start off this afternoons action packed agenda. Larry Wilde managed to lead us in the pledge of allegiance, with nary a miss. Appropriately, Dwayne Boccali lead us in a prayer of thanks for the liquid gold, and the safety of all present, and prayers for those who are not. Let’s eat!
Within minutes, Prez Bill rang the bell again at 12:30. With his usual cheer, Bill thanked all those who made this meeting possible. Sergeant at Arms, Matt Clements for set-up. Our greeters, Dave Watson and Steve White. Larry Wilde for the flag salute, Yolanda Flores for roving mic, Anne Carper for running the front desk, and last but not least, Mike Malone for reminder editor duties. As always, thanks to Ginger for our luncheon.
Visiting Rotarians & Guests:
We had no visiting Rotarians, but several guests. Special guests were Alex Kim, guest of Bret Bradigan. Carl Gross brought his son-in-law, Bryant Huber. Suzanne Scar brought her husband, Michael. Deirdre Daly introduced Robin Gerber, Tony Records, Jodi Martin, Maryse Gartner, and Sean Daly. Gray D’Angelo, an 8th grader from Matilija JHS attended with his grandfather, Don Scanlin.
Announcements:
Dr. Fauvre invited everyone to the Classic Heart & Sole run at San Antonio School, Saturday, February 4th. Click
here for more information.
Kay Bliss spoke about the upcoming
STEPS Conference next Saturday at CLU. We will be hosting two speakers from Niger. Mike Weaver chimed in by letting us know that anyone can attend, and encouraged carpooling. The conference will run from 9a.m. to 1p.m., and the theme this year is on How to prevent Human Trafficking. Our club will host 2 booths, and 1 workshop.
Don Reed announced that he has our donation cards for 2016 to use for taxes. Nathan Kaehler spoke about the Pavilions Project at MJHS. The group recently had a meeting where Marc Whitman unveiled his plans. They hope to begin construction this summer. We are still gathering donors & doing fund raising. We are trying to tie in the 100th Anniversary of Libbey Park.
Fining & Confessions:
Bruce Brockman, with whom few light bulbs are out of reach, started with confessions-a-plenty.
- Bob Davis echoed Dwayne’s words with praise for the continued rain, and prayers for our new President and a peaceful transition of power.
- Lerie Bjornstedt announced a generous donation to the Pavilion Project.
- Then members started lining up in order sing out the HUGE SUCCESS of Ojai Valley Bank / Ojai Green Coalition / Ojai Directory combined E-Waste Recycling event last Saturday. Pradeep started by reciting the staggering numbers of items collected. The fact that they were able to pull 22 laptops from the heap, restore them to use & donate to students in Kenya was statement enough. Pradeep also wanted to invite anyone who was interested in rain cisterns, to see him. He filled all the cisterns on his property, 10,000 gallons of rain water, and he would love to show how it is done. Ren Adams then stood and gave us more info on the E-Waste event. Green Coalition counted 415 cars, estimates 25 tons of recycle items filling 24 bins and one roll off container. Don Scanlin wanted to thank Ojai Community Bank with Dave Brubaker, Ren & Victoria Adams with Ojai Directory, for running the event.
- With the few minutes left to him, Bruce started on fining. Questions on what else, the Inauguration Facts. A few guesses, but not surprisingly, many answers were correct. What an alert group we have.
Program:
Deirdre Daly stood up to introduce our speaker for the day, Robin Gerber. Deirdre
reiterated Robin’s long list of accomplishments and books, “Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way”. Robin thanked us for asking her back.
Her most recent book, “Barbie and Ruth” is based on the life of Ruth Handler who started Mattel Toys. Ruth Handler was the youngest of 10 children, her family fled to Europe then to America, where her family was relocated to Colorado. Ruth as a baby, was given to her eldest sister to raise.
In 1940, Ruth married & moved with her husband to Los Angeles. She encouraged her husband to change his first name to Elliott, so that it would sound less Semitic. Elliott was a master of hand crafted toys, and began making child size musical instruments like pianos & guitars.
They started a toy company they called Mattel. The combination of their partners name, Matt, and Elliott’s. To start, Mattel mostly made boy’s toys, like guns and rockets. In 1955 they were given the opportunity to buy advertising time on a new Television show, the Mickey Mouse club. They show was new, had not been tested. And a toy company had never advertised on T.V. before, but Ruth decided the gamble was worth it. Risking the entire net worth of the company ($500,000) on this one experiment, they went forward. Of course the rest is history. They Mickey Mouse Club was a major success, and Mattel’s revenue exploded from that momentum.
Ruth had an idea to make a doll for little girls, that was a grown-up shaped doll. Girls dolls at that time were only baby dolls, and everyone told Ruth that parents would never buy a grown up version for their girls. During a family vacation to Germany, Ruth saw a doll in a toy store that fit the bill. Buying every variation sold, she brought it back to L.A. determined to make it. In 1959, after much marketing research and public surveys, they launched “Barbie” dolls at a toy fair. Barbie was ma
rketed as a fashion model, with outfits sold separately. Initially slow going, Barbie sold over 300,000 dolls in the 1
st year.
As sometimes happens, over a period of decades, mistakes were made. The company was over extended, natural disasters happened, books were cooked, and the SEC stepped in. Ruth & Elliott were pushed out of their own company.
Not to be held down for long, Ruth found a market for breast prosthetics, after a mastectomy of her own. She started a company for women, and advocated for opening discussions about Breast Cancer, better research, and became an icon for women of all ages.
In 1992, Ruth was asked back as an Ambassador for Barbie, and traveled the world hosting events to promote Barbie. She made it to Barbie’s 40th Birthday.
After much applause, Robin was presented with a citrus box, and Prez Bill gave his closing remarks.
