Posted by Mary Murphy on May 09, 2018

Pledge and Invocation

Super greeting-table Rotarian, Sheryl Young, led the pledge of allegiance today.  Our walking encyclopedia maven, Michael Kimball, gave an inspiring though super extemporaneous invocation. 
 
Visiting Rotarians and Guests
Gary Chow, from the South San Francisco club attended today.  Cheri Carr introduced her mother-in-law, Jane Carr wife of the lovingly remembered Bob Carr.
 
Photo: Rotarian, Sheryl Young

Announcements

Jennifer Pence made a request for auction items for the Bistro Burlingame event on Sunday, May 20th - coming up everyone! 
 
Ms. Cheryl Fama celebrated 50 years as in Health Care...congratulations to a great lady.  Fritz Brauner joked about Mike Horwitz 17 year anniversary as a member of Burlingame Rotary Club.
The amazing Gary Chow was here to present a Community Service award to the Club. President Mike Horwitz was happy to accept the award on behalf of all Burlingame Rotarians. And thank you to Gary Chow for working with the club to log all our activities to that make us eligible for the award in the first place. Well done fellow Rotarians!
 
Photo: Pierre Bouquet, left.  Gary Chow and President Mike Horwitz, right.
 
A big Happy Birthday to Mr. Pierre Bouquet who will celebrate his 89th birthday on May 13th.  To close this section of the meeting, joker extraordinaire, Mr. Fritz Brauner confounded us by announcing four truths and a lie and asked the club to decide which was the lie... Was it true that a lady called 911 to order a beer? Or, did the oldest spider in the world just die at 48 years old? How about a truck full of liquid chocolate crash spilling all over a freeway? Finally, did a Paris museum recently open its doors to nudists? Turns out they are all true!
 
Big announcement from Past President Carol Tanzi who congratulated Cheri Carr on being elected as the new President Elect Elect. Cheri will take up the reins for Rotary year 2019-20. Cheri comes from the Hi-Tech industry and holds three U.S. patents. She was CEO of a company and the first female VP at Mitsubishi. Tired of hi-tech she decided to go walk-about and purchased Morrison Travel Company, which she now runs. She and her husband of 30 years live in Burlingame. Her son Austin is an amazing stand-up comedian. We are very excited to pass the gavel to Cheri in July 2019.  Note: The President Elect is chosen by a committee consisting of five of the past Club Presidents. The process begins in October of the previous year.
 
Photo:Here is Cheri with her mother-in-law, Jane Carr and member Mike Harvey.

Program 

Today's speaker was writer and documentary producer, James Reid. He was introduced by Emily Matthews who gave us some insight into Mr. Reid's background. James Reid wanted to be a journalist since he was 14 years old, although he started as an altar boy in Petaluma. Times before the camera showed him that he'd rather be behind the camera and he worked with the Lilian Lincoln Foundation, which funded documentary movies. After bumping into a guy at Yale who was working on an antidote for snakebite, James decided to educate himself on snakebite around the globe and its effect. He discovered that snakebite is the most neglected of all tropical disease and kills 138,000 people a year, quite a part from all the people it maims or disfigures.  James decided to make a documentary on snakebites and persuading the WHO - World Health Organization - to adopt a policy for snakebite. $26 million is needed for 6 years to develop and distribute antidote to the various hospitals in the world in order to prevent deaths, disfigurement including blindness. James has met with various companies recently in the Bay Area including Genentech, Pfiser and UCSF Global Health and with the Gates Foundation to work on the problem. His documentary came out in the Fall of 2017. Before he played the movie for us he told us that snakebite kills more people every month than the total number of fatalities in the last Ebola outbreak. He urged Rotarians to get involved.  Thank you James for your passion and commitment to this tragic situation. James Reid, Snakebite: Minutes to Die can be seen by going to http://minutestodie.com/about-the-film/