Westwood Village Rotary Club

Thoughts about Bill Goodwyn. Our speaker today, Vin DiBona, was the creator of the longest running network TV show, The World's Funniest Home Videos.

Our own, Carol Rosenstein, the internationally acclaimed subject for a Rotary magazine cover story, spoke about "Melodies and Memories," how melodies can be medicine for memory loss.

Our speaker, Cori Garfias, is the Group Sales and Tourism Assistant for the Getty Museum. Her presentation was about John Paul Getty and these two Los Angeles jewels - the Getty Museums.

Today's speakers were Lynn and Mark Rogo, and their topic was residential real estate. Excellent!

Our guest speaker was Barbara Turman, Director of gift planning for the Academy of Motion Pictures. Ms. Turman gave us a virtual tour of the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures at Fairfax and Wilshire (the old May Company Building and new Sphere).

Actor and Producer Matt McCoy, who is a Board Member of St. James Inn, spoke to us about the mission of the organization, a host home for families of patients and for outpatients of UCLA Reagan Hospital: its founding, history, and its ability to maintain and expand on its mission for over 30 years.

Dr. Paul O'Reilly, the incoming President of Thomas Aquinas College, spoke to us about the College, as a Great Books School in Santa Paula, CA.

Mark Loretta filled us in on his baseball career, with 5 teams, a 2-time All Star Game player, and co-manager/bench manager of the Chicago Cubs.

Rafe Esquith, a 1981 graduate of UCLA, is a teacher who taught at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School from 1984 until his resignation in 2015. Many of his students, who were all from a community of poor and immigrant families, started class very early, left late, and typically achieved high scores in standardized tests. Esquith has authored books about teaching and his annual class Shakespeare productions were featured in the 2005 documentary The Hobart Shakespeareans. His teaching honors include the 1992 Teacher of the Year, for The Walt Disney Company's American Teacher Awards, a Fellowship from Johns Hopkins University, Oprah Winfrey's $100,000 "Use Your Life Award," Parents Magazine's "As You Grow Award," National Medal of Arts, and Esquith was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire. He gave a TED talk about this subject in 2012.

Financial Advisers' Day: Our in-house financial experts Steve Scherer, Dwight Heikkila, Jim Crane, Nancy McCready, and John O'Keefe give their predictions for closing prices on 12-31-22 for the Dow-Jones, S&P 500, NASDAQ, 1-year treasury, and 10-year treasury, and each panelist selected a best "post pandemic stock."

Today there were two for the price of one presentations!!! Our first presenter was Sunda Croonquist, who is an American comedian. She has appeared on Comics Unleashed, Premium Blend, and The View. As a new member, she gave us her craft talk. If you missed it, you'll want to watch this video. Sunda was followed by our second presenter, Ellen Simon. Ellen has been the Executive Director of Hear Center in Pasadena since 2007, after 24 years serving as HEAR Center's Pediatric Audiologist. She holds a Masters degree in Audiology from the University of Michigan and has been an active member of Pasadena Rotary since 2008.

Our speaker today was Janet Marinaccio, President & CEO of MEND (Meet Each Need With Dignity). For 50 years, MEND has opened its doors to the most vulnerable members of our community and over the years it has become one of the most comprehensive and empowering poverty relief agencies in Los Angeles County.

Hump Day with PP Tom Barron and his motley crew.

John Mulchaey on "The Search for Life in the Universe." John Mulchaey is the director and the Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair of the Carnegie Observatories. He investigates groups and clusters of galaxies, elliptical galaxies, dark matter - the invisible material that makes up most of the universe - active galaxies and black holes.

Guest Speaker: Scott Tennent, Chief Communication Officer of Hammer Museum.

Peter Johnson is a retired English teacher from Palisades High School. His topic will be the benefits, both practical and aesthetic, of reading good literature. He will discuss the reading habits of enormously literate people namely Winston Churchill, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, and Oprah Winfrey

Emerita Professor Breen is a Member, Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, and an Adjunct Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, at UCLA. She will talk on the topic of Mind, Brain, and Immune System: It Isn't Just in Your Head.

Dr. Stover gave his craft talk today. Dave is President of Nammi Therapeutics, Inc. He earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Washington and holds a B.S. in Zoology from Duke University. Dr. Stover has over 25 years of experience in both small molecule and biologics drug discovery and development. In addition to his craft talk, Dave spoke about cancer research being done by Nammi Therapeutics, Inc.

Jose Vera was our speaker today. Jose is a member of the Los Angeles 5 Rotary Club and is co-chair of the District Humanitarian Trip to Puerto Rico (Apr 18, 2022 - Apr 24, 2022). Jose discussed what the District has planned for this trip and how we can participate.

Today's program featured William Bridge, Chairman of Green Cross and CEO of Global Green, discussing challenges to the environment and how to meet those challenges.

Goeff Forgione is Associate General Counsel for the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink). Wedged between Amtrak (longer trips with fewer stops - a vacation line) and Los Angeles Metro (subway), Metrolink compliments these other rail services.

District Governor Guity Javid has been a proponent of community service throughout her life. She has been a member of Rancho Park Rotary Club since January 1991. She served as the President and numerous other positions in her club and district 5280.

Our speakers on September 30, 2021, Zachery Coil and Maureen Rivas, are from The People Concern. The People Concern is a non-profit that works with the homeless in West LA and Santa Monica. The homeless organization, West LA Homeless, has employed TPC to come into West LA to help get people off the streets. Mike Stevenson (President & COO of West LA Homeless) spoke to our Rotary Club last August.

Jennifer Noble is the Director of the Westwood Public Library. Her topics include the joys of reading; what's special about their branch; how the library can help people.

A senior lecturer in the UCLA English Department, Stephen Dickey has received numerous teaching prizes, including the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1993. He teaches various courses in Shakespeare, the English Renaissance, and the Beat Generation, as well as introductory courses in poetry and drama. From 2002-16, Dickey served on the faculty of the Folger Teaching Shakespeare Institute, an NEH-supported program for high school teachers from across the country, held biennially at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Recent publications include works on Romeo and Juliet, the Henry IV plays, American interest in Shakespeare during the Civil War, and the katabasis motif in Beat literature. In 2016-17, he curated America's Shakespeare: The Bard Goes West at the Los Angeles Central Library.