APR 1, 2014 ROTARY IN REVIEW:
Christine Fleming, Be the Match Foundation

Either fooled** by Pretender-to-the-Throne Doug’s March 4 “experiment” with a 12:17 start time for the meeting, or flummoxed by having to find a lot near the Doubletree not displaying a “FULL” sign*, your august Scribe missed the 12:15 start time.  That’s a first.**

Jim Field opened the meeting leading all in Kayne’s** “Bound 20.***”  Doug Hartford brought in a motorcycle, and gamely rode with his back to the handlebars as Jim rapped out the lyrics like nobody’s business.  Way to represent, Jim!

Jean Vukas Roberts delivered an inspiring invocation.  Your Scribe knows; he witnessed the last six sentences of it.* 

Rumor has it that Jill Petsel introduced the week’s guests.  President Jim then thanked brand new member* Elyse Dornhecker and slightly longer term member Blake Davis for their service as door greeters. 

Next Jim introduced your Scribe (Joe Beckman), noting as he weeps “tears of joy each time he reads” Mr. Beckman’s report of Rotary proceedings.**  Your Scribe would have been flattered to have actually heard this.  He was at the Spaghetti Bar,* and still fuming over Monday evening’s series finale of How I Met Your Mother.**   

Mindee Kastelic played the day’s first official April Fool’s joke, stating all the shifts for Feed My Starving Children are covered.  In truth, some are, but there are slots available.  Contact Sherry or go here to sign up for your shift! 

Ed Coleman and Jason Rhode sporting a Wild jersey and Blues jersey respectively,* pitched next week’s Wild Game/Fundraiser.  The $65 tickets are actually under face, and $20 from each goes to the St. Paul Rotary Foundation.  To purchase tickets, just click on this link, and use Special Offer Code: Rotary.

Kathleen Riley handled “Happy Dollars.”  They went fast, so special thanks to Bill Blackburn, our fellow Rotarian from Minneapolis Uptown, who gave Kathleen a hand full of dollars in connection with his announcement about a wine and cheese tasting with Charlie Broder from Terzo Restaurant on April 4th at the Minikahda Club http://www.tastingforhaiti.org. Contact Bill at william.blackburn@wellsfargo.com for more information.

Joe Kovarik gave a spontaneous, completely unrehearsed (0:03:45 budgeted) announcement regarding the District Conference coming up April 24-26, and Club 10’s “Values Day” on May 13.  The Values Day luncheon at the Prom will be our meeting for the week.  April 24-26 is a crowded Rotary Weekend (FMSC and Camp RYLA), but you should also give due consideration to getting to the National Sports Center in Blaine if you can.  See the Schedule for details.

On Values Day, 25 members are needed to be “table leaders” to facilitate a discussion that follows two debaters who argue that “America Has a Values Crisis.”  You can register here.  The luncheon (registration also required) is included for Rotary members.

Ken Crabb introduced our speaker, Christine Fleming, Ms. Fleming is the CEO of “Be the Match,” which is operated by the National Marrow Donor Program.  The registry has been around since 1987.  It has been vampire free** since 1990. 

Most marrow comes from people under 44, and until recently people over 50 were not candidates for a marrow transplant.  Last year, over one third (2,000) of the recipients were over 50.  That’s good news to us, Rotarians!  (And a reason WHY we need to recruit younger members?)

Your Scribe has donated literally gallons* of blood since he turned 17.  Bored, he moved to apheresis donations* mostly because he got to watch free videos* and a desire to save on the rental fees**.  Bored by that,  he signed up to be a Marrow Donor in 1999.*  He worried for a time that “they didn’t want his marrow,” but learned on Tuesday that only 1 in 540* people on the register are actually called to donate.

Seven of ten people who need a marrow donation (often people with life‑threatening blood cancers such as leukemia or lymphoma) do not have a matching donor in the family.  In addition to matching donors, Be the Match supports every aspect of the transplant process: patient/family; physician education; research; donor recruitment and network support for the transplant community.

Striving to show that, vacation aside, his status remained “Legend . . . wait for it . . . Dary!”, President Jim thanked Ms. Fleming, made a donation in her name to the Read with Me program of the Saint Paul Public Library.  His stash of Four Way Test coins apparently purloined by Usurper Doug, Jim offered a “Five Way Test” coin to Ms. Fleming.**  (The Fifth Way is supposedly “Is it funny?  Don’t take yourself too seriously in the process of achieving 1 through 4.”) 

Bartelby the Scrivener

April Fool’s Code:  (In order)

*   True statement.  Really.

** Really?  Were none of you outside on Tuesday?

Hardly.  With the exception of court, he’s so chronically “not on time” he will be late* for his own funeral. 

Really?  The Club gets exactly the value it pays for with this tripe.  He is more likely weeping that we are forced to publish this.

It is true your Scribe watched the series finale of HIMYM on Monday.  It was the first (and only) episode of the program he ever saw.  That is one more episode of “Lost” than he has seen, and 44 less episodes of MPFC than he’s nearly memorized.

Everyone knows vampires hang around blood banks.  There really is not anything of interest to them at a bone marrow donation point.

While your scribe could absorb the video rental fees, he vaguely recalls the nurses in the apheresis center being cuter (and better conversationalist) than the young ladies who worked at the video store. . . but that was a looong time ago.

Maybe there should be a “Fifth Way” added.  Maybe that’s the ticket for a successful coup of this place . . . I wonder if Doug would help with that?

***  This is a link to the “sanitized” Seth Rogan/James Franco parody.  Here is a report in Billboard about the unveiling of the NSFW version of the Kanye/Kim video . . . now try to chase out of your mind that appetite altering image of Doug/Jim acting that out before lunch!

Joe Beckman, Scribe