Rotary Bulletin 5-10-2012   “We Are At Our Best When We are Unprepared”.

Introduction:  Attendance seemed to be a little down this week and you missed one of the best meetings, let me explain later.  It was great to see Penny and Lorena again.  They have been very busy “getting through the recession” and that takes some doing now-a-days.  By the way if Penny doesn’t shake your hand it not because she is not glad to see you, she has a little bit of a medical condition that makes it uncomfortable.  I like the hug better anyway.  With Lorena I get both.

First of All Dick brought his very attractive daughter to Rotary.  Her name was Patty “Lou”, not sure if I spelled Patti right and she didn’t particularly like the Lou Part.  She was fun and lively and we were glad to have her. 

Guests:  We had no further guests this week and the fella that came last week to “check us out” did not come back.  When he was introduced by Tom last week as a prospective new member Elyse jumped in his lap and gave him a big welcome.  He was a little surprised and it looked like he thought he went to a different “club” for lunch.  With his greeting it looked like he was in a “Gentlemans Club”.  I asked Tom if the greeting was a “lap dance”.  I heard about stuff like that but Tom said “no, that’s not a lap dance!.  I would know”.  I didn’t know, but Tom did. It is great having well rounded people in the club.  People of the world who are knowledgeable about such things.

Program:  We found out at the last minute that the Program could not make it and Melissa had to do some tap dancing and called upon Julia to talk to us about the Foundation.  Julia was in charge of raising money for the Foundation for about 10 years and boy was she good at that!  I complimented her on her fine job over the years and told about how I never wanted to “catch her eye” when she was at a meeting because I knew she was going to ask me for money.  When I would tell her I couldn’t afford it, she said “what can you afford” and I would make up some number and she would tell me how there were matching funds that double that amount and if I could come up with just a few dollars more I would be saving someone from some horrible disease that would “someday grow up to be a Doctor” -- and they in turn could save thousands of future lives because of my extra $100.  Did I really want to be responsible for the fate of so many.   I found the hundred. 

She was the best and is a hard act to follow.  Jack is going to be our Foundation Chair for this year so keep your eyes peeled(so to speak).  I know he had lunch with Julia recently to “learn the ropes”.  He stared at me recently after his visit and said, “man, did I learn a lot from her…she really knows this”.   I avoided his stare and faked that I had another appointment and started thinking about how am I going to get the next $100 and save the world.

Since the program couldn’t be there Melissa tried another weapon…Joe Harding.  Never at a loss for words, Joe told us that he recently started some classes on improvisation.  This is to help Joe overcome his innate shyness and it seems to be working.  He put us through some exercises that he learned in the class.  The first was for 5 of us to tell a story, one sentence at a time.  After each sentence the next person had to begin the next line of the story with the next letter of the alphabet.  There was myself, Phil, Jim, Frank, and Marhsa.  We went through all the letters of the alphabet beginning our sentences and the story “got told” so to speak.  You might call it a “novella”.  The story line quickly went to Las Vegas with lot’s of Sex in it.  We got to the 26th line just before the “novella” turned to Porn.  People were sorry to see it end.  This was how “Fifty Shades of Grey” was written.

The next “Sketch” was a cab ride.  Julie was the first one in the cab and was the driver.  She had to play the role as Angry.  She then picked up a passenger (Sheila) who had to be giddy.  Each time someone as picked up they had a different mood to portray and the whole rest of the cab had to portray the same mood.  For a while both Shiela and Julie “drove” as giddy, then picked up Marsha who was sad, very sad because her Cat was constipated.  Everyone in the cab then had to be sad, and they were.  They were also very very funny.  Then they picked up Clair and she joined the group as “Worried”…and they all worried about everything.   They worried and whined.  This was very funny and all Rotarians were excellent actors.  I can see us doing this again.

We ended with Julie being a hammer and Sandy being a nail.  They had a lively conversation about what each would be thinking when they approached each other with their “function “ in mind.

This was a very fun Program and lots of people participated and laughed very hard.  I changed my trousers later.

Rotary Quiz:  (For an Extra Raffle Ticket and Bragging Rights be the first person to Email me the answer to:  There was a TV show in the late 80’s and early 90’s with improvisational actors.  It was on for about 10 years and was very funny.  Who was the main star and what was the title of the show?