President Kaisch opened today’s meeting by welcoming everyone to the Rotary Club of Fullerton.

Opening Commentary: For the past several months, I have focused on our Rotary motto, Service Above Self. As we have explored what this means, we have seen how it is rooted in the notion of love. To put the service of others above the service to my own needs is as good a definition of love as I have ever seen. Our challenge as Rotarians is to find ways to love more fully – literally opening ourselves more fully to others. At its root, then, Rotary is about changing ourselves. It’s about learning to move from “Me-Me-Me” as the center of the universe towards a deeper, more spiritual and more inclusive understanding. Notice that nobody tells us how to do this. Isn’t that curious? There are self-help books about everything, except for this. To check myself on this one, I went to Amazon and typed in ‘How to Love’ in the search bar. Here’s what I found: ‘How to make her happy’; ‘Practical Law of Attraction’; ‘How We love’ (about marriage); and the very next tittle, ‘How to avoid falling in love with a jerk.’ I’m not sure how you were raised, but I was raised with the understanding that children were animals in dire need of civilization. That civilizing of the Kaisch kids came about by an unsparing use of the belt – not a tactic that I would recommend today. (You can attribute any observed abnormalities in my behavior to this, I’m sure.) So imagine my surprise when, in grad school, I watched a video of toddlers in daycare – little guys in diapers running around with a couple of adults to supervise. There was one child that was in the corner crying. Something – you couldn’t tell for sure, but something was wrong for that kid. One child took a toy over to the little boy, offering it to him. It seemed like he was saying in pantomime, “this calms me down and makes me happy. Why don’t you try it? It’ll make you feel better.” The child ignored the overture. After a time, another child went over to the daycare worker and tugged on her pant leg. It became evident that he was trying to get the adult to go over and take care of the little one who was crying. And all this was happening during that stage in life where psychologists have thought that children played independently of one another. The truth is quite different, and it was on full display in this video. We are hard-wired to care for each other. We want to take care of those around us. We are born loving one another! But then something happens, doesn’t it. I am sharing a bowl of cherries with my younger brother – we both adored cherries when we were young. As we get near the end of the bowl, I notice that there are not many cherries left so I grab the last bunch and stuff them in my mouth. “Ha-ha,” I chortle to myself, “I got the last ones!” The Desire-Beast, that great god known as Me-Me-Me, has reared his head and shouted the great shout, MIIIIINE! All of a sudden, our loving – flowing so naturally and sweetly within us – has grown edges. From here in (gesture), I am loving and generous. Outside of that edge, I grab. And you grab. And we all grab. And we are all weaker for it. When we join Rotary, we start going to school. Every week we hear speakers who expand our horizons, who show us the needs that exist around the world. Julie Virjee last week showed us some of the needs of Rwanda. This week our city engineer will talk to us about recovering from our business shutdown. And with every speaker, we have another opportunity to learn about the needs of those around us. And in learning, we have the potential to respond. We have the opportunity to explore Service Above Self.

Club news: Last week, for those who could not be here, was our Covid Mask competition. John Phelps and Judy Atwell were tied for the win and will received genuine gold plastic Oscars at some future date when we can meet in person. Brett Ackerman got an Honorable Mention for wearing a bedpan on his face! We participated in a Global Grant to provide health serviced in Zambia last year. We just received word from RI that the grant was funded for $52,804.Club members that deserve special recognition for Service Above Self: Your Board members, Cathy Gach, Mike Cochran, Bob Muschek, Karen Xie, Susan Ouweleen, Travis McShane, Monica Fernandez, Howard Minkley, Christian Esteban; Glynnes Speak, and Zoot Velasco. I got a call from Mike Cochran yesterday and he said that he had checked with the RI database, and our club now holds the record for the longest board meeting.

John Phelps lead us in the pledge of allegiance and Theresa Harvey provided today’s invocation. Announcements: There is talk that Orange County will be open for business soon. We have not heard from Coyote Hills about their opening, but we will keep you posted. Maybe we can even resurrect our Movie Night at the Muck! Now is a great time to invite your friends to a Rotary meeting. Everyone is bored with the quarantine monotony, so Rotary is a welcome respite. This week, Matt Foulkes, our city civil engineer, will speak, and next week, Travis McShane will lead us in a process to get us thinking about club membership and who we might invite to this very special group.

Kim Barlow was today’s recognition masters. Christian Esteban was fined for his birthday; Dan Fisk for his birthday; Jim Thompson whose wife Mary Jane is having a birthday; Royce Hutain’s wife Joni wife is having a birthday; Rev. Jon West’s wife Marcia is having a birthday. Bill and Wilma Peloquin are celebrating their wedding anniversary; Alan Bridgford and his wife Janet are celebrating their wedding anniversary; Thad Sanford and his wife Ann are celebrating their 52nd wedding anniversary. Thad upped his fine from $5 to $52 and Miko Krisvoy celebrates her 9th year as a Rotarian. Farrell Hirsch was fined for the noise pollution coming from the Much on Thursday night; Rick Crane was fined because Kim misses seeing the Angeles in person and because they are having a bad season; Bob Muschek and Vimal Seth were both fined for not providing the updated billing envelopes with Cathy Gach’s Oregon address; Dan Kiernan was fined only because Kim loves his mug; Joe Lins and Thad Sanford were both fined for supporting a ballet measure that would increase our taxes; Bev Berryman was fined for standing through today’s presentation; John Phelps was fined for also supporting the ballet measure and will have to pay $5 for each vote cast in favor of the measure; Jim Williams was fined for giving up his spot at an upcoming Much event in favor of his wife Sally’s birthday; and everyone was find who has not supported a local restaurant over the past week.

Today’s speaker, Matt Foulkes was introduced by Rick Crane. Matt Foulkes serves as the Director of Community and Economic Development for the City of Fullerton, a position he assumed in September 2019. Matt’s department includes, Planning, Building permits, plan check and inspections, Code Enforcement and Housing. Before joining the Fullerton team in 2015 he worked in various Planning positions for the Cities of Santa Ana and Pico Rivera. In addition to his work with the City, Matt has also been a board member for the Orange Section of the American Planning Association (OCAPA), working in various roles within that organization since joining in 2009. Matt received his bachelor’s degree in Environmental Analysis and Design and his master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California, Irvine. Matt considers himself a nearly 20-year O.C. resident although technically living just on the other side of the county line in the City of Whittier for the last three-years.

Matt shared a slide presentation highlighting numerous projects currently under development as well as those in the pre-development stages throughout Fullerton. The city is getting back to business and development is on the increase. The residents of Fullerton can look forward to many new places to eat, shop and live in the coming months. Thank you Matt for a very informative presentation.

President Kaisch’s closing thoughts: I would like to share a poem by Rumi, a great Sufi mystic. It was through Rumi that I first heard the notion of love having edges. “The clear bead at the center changes everything. There are no edges to my loving now. I’ve heard it said there is a window from one soul to the next, but if there’s no wall there’s no need for the window or the latch.” With that, my friends, “Go out and be good people and great Rotarians!” The meeting is adjourned.

Don’t miss your chance to share these special programs with a guest

Invite a Friend and Share Rotary
09/09/2020 * BUILDING FULLERTON ROTARY
Travis McShane / Director Club Service

09/16/2020 * NEW MEMBER CRAFT TALK
Bailey Kline / Look Out! Here’s Comes Bailey.

09/30/2020 * NOW WHAT? POLITICAL ANALYSIS 2021
Barbara Stone / Retired Professor CSUF

10/07/2020 * TITANS REACH HIGHER IN CHALLENGING TIMES
CSUF President Fram Virjee / Status of the University

10/14/2020 * NEW MEMBER CRAFT TALK
Monica Fernandez / “Hear Yee. Hear Yee”

10/21/2020 * CITY OF FULLERTON INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES
David Grantham / Public Works Engineering

10/28/2020 * MARKET BEHAVIOR IN ELECTION YEARS
Tyler Furek / Capital Group