Soundings (10/9/07)
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Visiting Rotarians: Pete Kremen
Guests: None today
Announcements:
Grape & Gourmet three weeks out!
Wineries: Barry says doing OK.
Restaurants: good shape.
Tickets: Zachary and Bob Yost said VIP's sold out, still need to sell $75 tickets;
Silent Auction: needs a couple volunteers for check-out, also need auction items;
Security: Ron and Bill Unrein doing OK.
Logistics: Lynn Templeton says see update.
Food Bank construction project: Bill Geyer handed out a sheet for signatures of our membership to petition the City of Bellingham to let the project get through the Design Review board.
Fellowship event idea:Lance Calloway suggested a one day up and back trip to Whistler on chartered bus Ski bus for early January weekend. We'll see if there is enough interest.
Bucks in the Bay
Bob for Stanford victory over No.2 ranked USC last weekend;
Denise Bosman for 3 weeks in Italy and France;
Bob Jones missed last week due dealing with his son's car collision on the Mount Baker Hwy (thankfully he's OK);
Stephanie thankful for St Paul's grade 6-9 kids finally moving into portables - Pearson helped out a lot;
Frank Chmelik thankful for signing Whatcom Waterway "consent decree" allowing the $42M cleanup project to begin!
Gordon Plume $100 for project in Aspen, also attending father's 95 birthday in Colorado, anniversary with wife Robin, completed Bellingham's half marathon 2nd place in age division (busy month for Gordon!);
Bob Yost gave $ for our Foundation, celebrated birth of new granddaughter Meg Marie;
Sergeant at Arms by Ron Hardesty
buddy bucks for Byron and Steve K, Dale Brandland, Lance Calloway, Bill Geyer and 5th ward residents.
Program
Orphalee introduced David Stadler, professor at WWU.
David showed a video on the 2005 tsunami which killed 250,000 people, and left 2.5M homeless. Interviewing survivors, he found out that many did not know about the newly installed early warning system - this gave him the idea to create an education center (International Tsunami Museum in Phuket) to let the locals know about the history of the event and what to do in a natural disaster. In 2006, he took four WWU students to Thailand to build the faciilty. Since opening, over 10,000 people have visited the museum.
David has Interviewed hundreds of survivors about the effect of the tsunami. There was a huge loss of jobs; most of the fishing industry was destroyed. Tourism suffered. Recovery will take 5-20 years and it will be the world's costliest disaster.
After the event, the world came together to create the new Indian Ocean tsunami warning system (design of which based on an existing warning system in Pacific ocean).
Respectfully submitted,
Stowe Talbot