Socializing stopped for a while at 7:30 when President Maureen Merrill rang the online bell. 28 people were online.
We were once more shown a John Nelson seagull photo and Susan Cole shared Marie Curie’s quote:
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now it the time to know more.
The scribe for the day was Tom Boylan
No visiting Rotarians:
Guest of Rotarians:
Mark Hanson, our speaker, was introduced.
Announcements:
Newest members continue to get a shout out by Pres Maureen, including Catherine Hanron, Matt Rush and Beth Smith.
We learned that down the road we are going to have Chris Smith, Press Democrat columnist, as a speaker. Stay tuned.
April Powerhouse Rotarian and photo archivist Sue Nelson was thanked for all she contributes to the Club.
Remembering George Johnson meant sharing photos of men in kilts. Joe Deacon shared a story of sitting with George in a meeting when George offered an airplane engine to the Windsor High School auto shop class. Joe thinks it would be good to know that the engine was repaired and it is the one that George, with his kilt on, used to propel him upward for his last flight.
Bill Conklin’s granddaughter Emilia Dolores was highlighted once more and thanks went to Bill for his donation to the Foundation.
Heather Cullen rolled into the meeting in her pajamas and announced her efforts to get a food drive underway. This effort will add to the pantries of the folks we are supporting. Food drop off times are April 24th, and Sunday April 26th at 5 PM. Drop your donation at 9525 Jessica Drive, or 301 Jensen Lane.
Pres Maureen shared a few debunking pics and asked for a definition of what it means to be debunked. We all had a good laugh looking back at Susan Cole’s festivities and a photo of Bill Arnone in Tahitian drag. We looked back at President Jack Hyde’s debunking, Captain Jack and crew were looking pretty festive and ready to work as extras on a Disney set. We ended the photo memories with a group shot and Pres Maureen’s last debunking at the famed Pink Elephant in Monte Rio. The was a surely looking bunch and we are told there are no photos of Pres Maureen dancing on the bar.
We can thank Sue Nelson for sharing photos from the archive.
Carol Martin gave us a report on community service. Donations that we reported on last week, went to various food projects and now the thank you notices are rolling in from Our Lady of Guadalupe, First Presbyterian Church and Windsor Alliance. Posts promoting our good efforts have been made to the Club Facebook page and you are invited to go there and repost to your own page so that we can let others know the good work Rotary is doing in the community. Spread the good service the club is engaged in. Our money is going a long way to help others.
Program:
JB Leep provided the introduction of our speaker Matt Hanson, the owner of the Bricoleur Vineyards and Winery in Windsor. Mark is a North Bay native who was raised in Sonoma County. His wife’s grandfather was Carlo Rossi, the famed winemaker. Mark told us he is a fairly recent transplant back to Sonoma County where he and his wife decided they wanted to open a corporate and charitable event center because retirement was too foreign a word for the dynamic couple.
The building that will house the new center is a renovated horse barn. When working for permits with the County government, it became apparent that to have an event center they had to start a winery, due to restrictions offered by the County for the building of an event center.
A cute story of the naming of the winery let us know the name, Bricoleur, is defined as having no plan, and according to Mark, they definitely were flying by the seat of their pants on the project.
A fourth generation member of a winemaking family, Cary Gott took on the role of winemaker for the company. According to Mark, their company has been expanding even though not many others have been undertaking the same aggressive stance for expanding under the current climate for business in the North Bay and beyond. The future has a 40,000 case winery being developed in the next 5 years.
The winery is promoting a variety of boutique wines so that they can promote tasting / pairings in the near future. The photos of the Winery will be all we get to see for a short time due to the current situation, so we will have to make the trek once they get the doors open with the blessing of the powers that keep us healthy. The building did have an opportunity to be used for a family wedding two years ago and the photos looked amazing.
Mark invited the attendees to feel free to wander the property without any intrusion while looking for places to go during the COVID crisis.