Rotaract Club of Downtown San Diego Weekly Announcements December 13, 2005

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Next Meeting Our next general meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 03, 2006 at 6:30 pm at Kansas City BBQ, 610 W. Market Street, Downtown San Diego. Please note: There will be no meetings on December 20 or December 27, 2005! Please put the first Rotaract meeting of the year 2006 on your calendar now, for January 3rd! Please note: There will not be a Rotaract e-newsletter for the weeks of December 19, 2005 – January 01, 2006. We're looking forward to seeing you in January!

Happy Holidays from the Rotaract Board What an amazing 2005 Rotaract has had. With outstanding community service projects and social events, guest Rotaract visitors from all around the world, two dedicated and effective boards, an award for the Best Service Project in all of North America, Canada and the Caribbean ... and so much more ... think of what we can accomplish in 2006! The Rotaract Club of Downtown San Diego would like to wish you Happy Holidays and safe travels. We'll see you in the New Year! December 17 Saturday 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm Making Gingerbread Houses with the San Diego Center for Children 8:00 pm Rotaract Holiday Party & White Elephant Gift Exchange @ Felix Tinkov's house December 20 & 27 Tuesday Dark for the Holidays January 03 Tuesday First General Rotaract Meeting of 2006!

Rotaract Helps Fight for a Cure with Donations of over $5,300 to JDRF At our last meeting, the Rotaract Club of Downtown San Diego proudly handed over a check for $5,319.48 to Linda Riley, the Executive Director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, San Diego Chapter. This is 98% more than we donated last year, and after all of our hard work and the success and enjoyment the night of the event, it was a great honor to be able to hand over this money to such a worthy cause. Linda explained how our money will go towards immediate research in San Diego. These research programs bring together diabetes researchers from many institutions in diverse disciplines such as molecular biology and genetics, immunology, transplantation and vascular biology to find a cure for diabetes and its complications. Wherever appropriate, JDRF supports collaboration and partnerships among scientists and institutions to maximize research potential and bring about a cure as soon as possible. For more information on how JDRF fights for a cure visit www.jdrf.org. There were many thanks and recognition to be acknowledged, including our sponsors the Downtown Breakfast Rotary, Roche Diagnostics and the Onyx Room. Our deepest thanks to Danielle and Aaron for their tireless efforts in organizing everything, to Felix for another year of smooth operations, to Parker for a great job keeping the web site functional and current, and to everyone else who volunteered to make this such a perfect night. We are thankful to continue in the fight to cure Diabetes!

Looking for Volunteers to Form a Community Service Committee Our Club is looking for volunteers to form a Community Service Committee. Hello Rotaract members and prospective members, our board has recently decided to form a committee to support all community service efforts for the remaining of the year, and we are asking for your help! This is a great opportunity to step up and take a lead role while helping your community at large. We are looking for at least two motivated individuals to form this committee, if you are interested in participating please contact Miguel Moron, our community service chair and he will address all questions you may have. Thanks for your participation in advance!

Cultural Exchange Committee We are very excited to participate in a cultural exchange this year with the Rotaract Club of Kavaklidere, Turkey. We have received a very cool package from our sister club (86-minute DVD, CD with pop music, coffee, brochures about their country, etc.) and are even more excited about sharing our city with them. We hope to send off our package before the New Year. As part of our package, we will be filming short messages from our members to theirs. We would also like each member to fill out a short questionnaire to include in our package. So please make sure to be at the meeting on December 6th to participate. Or you can e-mail your answers to Stacey. Here are the questions: Name. Occupation. Where are you from? What do you enjoy most about San Diego? How did you hear about Rotaract / why did you join? What's your favorite Rotaract activity/event so far? Please contact Stacey for additional information.

Gingerbread House Making Event December 17 (Saturday) 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm San Diego Center for Children, 3002 Armstrong Street On December 17th from 12:30 pm to 3:30 pm Rotaract will be collaborating with the San Diego Center for Children. Volunteers will have an opportunity to build gingerbread houses with the kids and participate in an outdoor obstacle course. For more information please contact Miguel Moron or Carl Tiu. The Center for Children is located at 3002 Armstrong Street, San Diego, CA 92111. As the community's oldest accredited non-profit organization for children, the San Diego Center for Children seeks to offer therapaeutic and education in the least restrictive environments possible, to at-risk children and youth who have emotional, behavioral and learning problems.

Rotaract Holiday Party & White Elephant Gift Exchange December 17 (Saturday) 8:00 pm Felix Tinkov's House, 4752 Lotus Street, 92107, 619-887-6471 'Tis the season, so clear your party calendars! It's time again for Rotaract's annual White Elephant Party. Don't know what a White Elephant Party is? This means you missed last year's party, so you better ask somebody! It's one of the more fun events we do every year. The idea is this: Bring a funny (read: crappy) gift to the party all wrapped up with no identifying marks or tags. Drop your gift off and party. Come 10:00 pm, we'll figure out how many gifts we have and prepare a series of numbers for each gift giver. Your number represents when you get to choose a gift. The first person takes a random gift and is generally crushed/amused. The second person then takes another random gift, but is able to exchange their gift with the first one picked – if they want. The next person takes a new gift from the pile and has a choice of the prior two and so on. The first person gets to go for one last exchange after the last gift is picked and/or exchanged. So mark your calendar. Trust us, this is one you don't want to miss. BTW, our host Felix won't be disappointed if you bring a fine libation or spirit. If you have any questions or if you haven't received the evite yet, please contact Felix.

Member of the Month of November: Danielle Esposito Danielle Esposito was the guiding force behind this year's Jazz for Juvenile Diabetes. She was always enthusiastic and brought such amazing energy to the project as a co-chair with Aaron Adragna. Her fantastic efforts were realized with the most successful Jazz for Juvenile Diabetes fundraiser to date! Danielle herself feels proud of the work done on this event and was very impressed with everyone's participation in the club and feels that it definitely was worth all the long hours and stress in the end! A huge thank you for your fine efforts Danielle! Hometown: Valley Stream, NY (as featured in both The Brothers McMullen and Goodfellas. Seriously.) Education: The streets...and then the University of Virginia. Go 'Hoos! Favorite Rotaract event: Hanging out in the parking lot of the Chula Vista Chevron before TJ homebuilding Top five favorite movies: Empire of the Sun, Cinema Paradiso, Hotel Rwanda, It Happened One Night and the 1986 home video of my brother lip-synching Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" Dream travel destination: The Erg Chebbi sand dunes in Morocco Recreational activities: Suffering from ennui, arguing with Republicans, reading NY Times Notable books and drinking lots of red wine Person you admire most: My mom. (awww...)

Senior Center 2nd Saturday of each month Volunteers (2-3) are needed the 2nd Saturday of each month from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm to help serve lunch at the Senior Center Downtown. Please contact Miguel for details and availability.

Downtown San Diego Breakfast Rotary Meeting The Downtown San Diego Breakfast Rotary Club is meeting every Wednesday at 7:00 am at the Symphony Towers University Club, 750 B Street, Suite 3400. Next scheduled speakers / events: December 14 Ron Popham Senior Director Maritime Division San Diego Port District December 21 Dark for Christmas December 28 Dark for New Year's January 04 Mark Fabiani Attorney for the San Diego SuperChargers Future of the Chargers in San Diego For last minute changes, please check http://www.sdrotary.org!

Members' Bulletin Board Discounted Golf Tickets & Raffle Prize Donation Opportunity January 24-29, 2006 Like Golf? Want to walk along with Tiger Woods? The North County Rotaract is selling discounted tickets for the Buick Invitational, which is held at Torrey Pines Golf Course January 24-29, 2006. This is a fundraiser with 100% of ticket sales going to the BRIGHT Families Mentor Project, which works to prevent teenage pregnancy in San Diego. Tickets to the Buick Invitational would make great holiday gifts as the Buick Invitational is a world-renowned PGA tournament. Whether you buy them for you or friends & family, you will be supporting a wonderful cause and helping teens all around San Diego. Tickets are only $15.00 (normally $18-28.) For more information, contact the BRIGHT Families Program: 858-514-7549. If you would like to purchase tickets for the Buick Invitational, please contact Valerie Orrison from the North County Rotaract Club. Post your own message here! Do you need a roommate? Trying to sell your car? Let Rotaract work for you! Post your message here in the newsletter and have it be seen by over 100 like-minded people. Just send an e-mail to newsletter@sdrotaract.org with "Bulletin Board" in the subject line. Please remember to also include a general time frame for your message, e.g. 3 weeks, 2 newsletters, or until November 1st.

Rotaract & Rotary Trivia What is a District Rotaract Chairperson? The District Rotaract Chairperson is a Rotarian appointed by the District Governor to assist in promoting joint Rotary/Rotaract activities, supporting the organization of new Rotaract clubs and administering the Rotaract program within the district.

A special THANK YOU to the supporters and contributors of the 4th Annual Jazz for Juvenile Diabetes!