February has blown past, and we are approaching Spring on March 20. I hope that everyone had a happy Valentine’s Day, and the good feelings are carrying forward.
We had an exciting but short selection of programs for February. We started with Peter Teahen and John Ockenfels of the Rotary Club of Cedar Rapids giving an exciting and inspirational talk about their flying around the world in a single engine plane to raise funds for fighting polio. To date they have raised more than $2 million.
After a dark week for Valentine’s Day, we hosted Madeline Kangas of the Xerces Society, who spoke about native habitats, pollinator plants and the science of invertebrates. She explained to us the importance of invertebrates to our lives.
We are looking forward to a presentation by Claire Day of the Alzheimer's Association of Northern California about Advancing the Science: The Latest in Alzheimer’s Disease & Dementia Research. This should be a topic of interest to many of us.
On February 23, the Saratoga Inner Wheel hosted the annual brunch for our Inner Wheel district. Jan Lefevre has been president of Saratoga’s Inner Wheel, and has driven that organization to it’s success. Over 190 participants enjoyed brunch at the Saratoga Country Club, and heard about IW’s success providing artificial limbs for children. There was a notable number of Saratogans at the brunch, including many from Saratoga Rotary. Thanks to all attendees.
From March 26 through 28, the Enterprise Leadership Conference for Silicon Valley West (ELC SVW) will host its annual program. This conference takes 60 high school juniors offsite for an intensive program of training and hands on activity where 10 teams of 6 students each form a company, select a product or service, develop a plan to develop and bring their product to market, then sell the idea to a team of investors. It is followed up by pizza at the beach. The students make friends with students from other schools, with some of the connections lasting through college.
Our Charitable Foundation has been active, awarding grants to a number of deserving organizations who you will be hearing from over the next few weeks.
The Fellowship Foundation had a very successful Chinese New Year dinner, and has a St Patrick’s Day TGIF planned for this month.
Our lunch program appears to finally be under control, with Jose and Dexter providing hot buffet lunches, with WeBox as backup. As in the past, we need more Rotarian participation in order to make these solutions viable, so, if you are planning to attend the meeting, please order lunch. We are, in fact, a lunch club.
Have a great March!
Kikuji “Frank” Hatakeyama: A Legacy of Leadership, Business, and Community in Saratoga
By Renee Paquier
A Pioneer in Saratoga’s Business Community
As members of the Saratoga Rotary Club, we take pride in recognizing those who have contributed to our local community. One such individual is Kikuji “Frank” Hatakeyama, a businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist whose legacy still resonates in Saratoga today.
A very fun group gathered at Grand Dynasty Chinese Seafood Restaurant on January 30 to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Catherine Tseng arranged for special large round tables which added to the community feeling. Everyone was table hopping, sharing wine and admiring the outfits that showed up. Katherine picked out delicious dishes which were served family style. The bao and sui mai were my favorites. The surprise dessert of sweet buns decorated like little cute pigs capped off the evening. Grand Dynasty is in Cupertino at Bollinger and Miller. Very pretty restaurant!
The Mysterious World of Viruses – A Science Friday tidbit.
By Dave Eshleman
Viruses are strange entities. Too small to be seen by standard microscopes, scientists weren’t able to get a look at them until the invention of the electron microscope in 1943. They’re simple things, little more than “a piece of nucleic acid surrounded by bad news” in the words of Nobel laureate Peter Medawar.
In Italian, "piano" means "soft" (as opposed to "loud"). We used to call the instrument a "pianoforte", or "loud-soft". Later, we shortened it to "piano".
Previous musical keyboards, such as the harpsichord, had no way to control the volume. That's because, when you pressed a key, a mechanical "claw" plucked a string. But regardless if you hit the key harder or softer, the volume never changed. It was difficult to team a harpsichord with other instruments because you could barely hear it. But inside a pianoforte, a padded hammer hits a string to produce a note, and the stronger the hit, the louder the volume! Loud-soft!
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