You may not recognize all the faces in the photo above. That’s because some of them are members of the Rotaract Club of San Luis Obispo, our neighbors to the north.

They’ve been doing great stuff for years under the leadership of Founding President Dominic Tartaglia. Now, the club celebrates its official charter.

Up for a mini road trip? We’re invtied to attend the Charter Celebration on March 13 at 6 p.m. at the Tartaglia Ranch* in San Luis Obispo. Please RSVP to Holly Dragovich at hdragovich@gmail.com by March 6 to ensure that they have enough steak, salad, garlic bread, ranch beans and cake for everyone. This event is BYOB — bring your own beverage. Adults may bring adult beverages.

* Please ask Holly for the ranch address or Tara, Liz or David. Since this is a private home, we are not posting the address on the blog.  

If you’ve clicked that link you might be intimidated. Don’t be. We’re not hiking the whole thing. We like night hikes for the fresh air, the good company and the evening exercise.

We’ll walk up the trail, using our flashlights to admire the wildflowers and trying our best to take artsy photos of the moon while talking about good places to eat and how to save the world. Then, when we get tired, we’ll turn around and walk downhill.

We don’t plan to go to the top … this time.

Show up at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 25, in front of the Panda Express at La Cumbre Plaza. We’ll carpool from there to the trailhead to minimize the number of adventure passes we need and our carbon footprint.

Tips:

• Bring a flashlight or headlamp
• Bring water and a light snack. If you’re prone to hunger, eat before we meet.
• Wear sensible shoes and layers for the cold night air
• Optional, but enjoyable: Bring a camera, your well-behaved dog, your mostly well-behaved friends

Please RSVP to liz@sbrotaract.com with your phone number so we know who to wait for before leaving for the trailhead. Plan on about 3 hours overall, including drive time.

Rotary selects 100 participants every year to get training in the root causes of conflict, theories of international relations and effective models of cooperation and negotiation. The programs are hosted at these centers:

• Chulalongkorn University; Bangkok, Thailand
• Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
• International Christian University; Tokyo, Japan
• Universidad del Salvador; Buenos Aires, Argentina
• University of Bradford; West Yorkshire, England
• University of Queensland; Brisbane, Australia

Rotary is accepting applications now for the 2011-2012 year. Our Rotary District, District 5240, usually nominates one candidate each year. They must make their recommendation by July 1, so it’s best to get your application in soon. Read how to apply here. If you are very interested, let one of the Rotaract officers know. We can connect you with local Rotarians who can guide you in preparing your application.

Contact rotarypeacecenters@rotary.org for more information on this international program.

Join fellow Rotaractors in viewing Flow, Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century–

The World Water Crisis

Contact Lucille for directions at lucille@sbrotaract.com–we hope to see you there!

Rotaract would like YOU to tell us which community non-profits you’d like to work with this year!Please take a few minutes and select no more than FIVE non-profits you’d like to see us volunteer with in 2010.

Click HERE to take the survey.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the survey–feel free to e-mail me at lucille@sbrotaract.com. Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your day to help us out!

IMG_6038, originally uploaded by sbrotaract.

To everyone who helped at Goleta Valley Beautiful this morning in the community or at the greenhouse, thank you.

We wish you fast recovery from any sore muscles and fast removal of dirt stains on your clothes.

Next stop: Disneyland!

See more photos of Goleta Valley Beautiful here.

A friendly reminder that it’s not too late to sign up for a volunteer day in exchange for a day pass to the Happiest Place on Earth – Disneyland! You can pick any event, but a bunch of Rotaractors are planning on working with Goleta Valley Beautiful this Saturday, Jan. 16 at 1PM.

You can sign up at this link. Just search by zipcode: 93117 and it should be the first result. Once you sign up and send a message to Ken Knight, you’ll get back an automated response. Tell Ken what event you want to work at and he’ll confirm then you can confirm with the Disney site.

If you have any questions, just email us at info@sbrotaract.com