Menu: Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes, salad bar, and flan for dessert.
A man holding a basket full of paper slips greeted attending Rotarians and told them to draw a number. The tables had corresponding numbers. You were supposed to sit at the table whose number you had drawn. That way, each member would make new friends. I give it a week. Ex-Jar Heads John Burger, Pat Folkins, and Gregg Gardiner stood together as the speakers played “Halls of Montezuma” which is either a song about Eucalyptus flavored cough drops from South America, or the Marine Corps theme song. We did the pledge and then John Gierek gave the invocation. He asked us to pray for Wayne Wilson, who is in SF being treated for a brain aneurysm and for John Petrusha, a former Rotarian who passed away last week.
President Gregg announced that the first two Change the World Canisters had been turned in and counted. Jay Bahner’s had $350 and Gregg’s had a measly $157. Mindy Bussman reminded us that Backpacks for Kids would be starting up again October 2nd. Bag packers are needed. Rick Littlefield was fined for having abandoned the wine he won in last week’s raffle. Pat Folkins saved it for him. Now it’s a $25 bottle of wine. Mike Martin just returned from England where he spent 28 days digging for treasure. He found a 3800-year old bronze ax head and a gold coin minted by Henry VII worth $2,000. Dale Warmuth had been in New Zealand where, he claimed he “had just been helping that sheep over the fence”. Baaaad joke. $100. The sergeant at arms Steve Lafferty announced that we can now pay our recognitions with a credit card. Wendy Purnell finally got her blue badge. She joined the club in 2008. She said she’d waited so long because blue clashed with her outfits. Our esteemed leader called our attention to the Fellowship hour this Friday from 5 to 6 pm at the Ingomar Club Pool. It’s a chance to meet new friends if the numbered tables didn’t work for you. Bring a parka. Then it was time for a drawing. The aforementioned Wendy Purnell won a bottle of Rotary wine. Then calamity of all calamities, and interloper from another club drew the joker and won $310. It was Dennis Reinholtzen, now poster boy for Rotary Make Ups.
Our speaker was Paula Patton, Times-Standard publisher and member of our Rotary club. The Times-Standard is the only newspaper covering Northern California. It has a rich history dating back to 1854, it had local family ownership up until 1967 after that it passed through two or three more acquisitions until 1996 when it was purchased by Dean Singleton of Media News. In 2013 it became part of the Digital First Media when its owner the Media News group merged with 21st Century Media. It’s currently for sale “for the right price”. Paula told us what’s going on at the Time-Standard today and how they’re dealing with the new digital world. She presented a peppy video and then gave us some statistics. 20% of her revenue comes from subscribers, 25% from inserts, 25% on line and 30% from local display advertisers. Their website had 950,000 page views last month. The paper has 72 employees not counting paper boys, who are independent contractors. The paper uses 815 tons of newsprint a year. They have a new layout that is assembled at a hub in Chico. There have been some changes. Paid subscribers have ceased to be a focus. They no longer deliver a paper to Crescent City. Craig’s list caused the demise of classified ads. They took the news content out of the Tri-City Weekly. Other than that, things are just fine.
In a last-minute surge of new membership, Gregg had Jay Reed introduce new member Anthony Stubbs who works for Jay’s accounting firm Alfs and Evans.
Gamely submitted by Hank Ingham
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