This year under the leadership of Harry Ungar, the 
Santa Clara Valley Section issued the first ever 
Community College Teacher Scholar Award.  The award 
dinner was hosted by Dr. Tom Lane who discussed the 
importance of community colleges in chemistry 
education.  The award recipient, Dr. Jeanette Medina, 
also described her chemistry education and outreach 
program.  One additional highlight of the evening was 
a short speech by a young Berkeley chemistry student, 
who started as an ESL student at Canada Community 
College. She is the first in her family to attend
college, and she found her love of chemistry under Dr.
Medina, and is now looking forward to attending
graduate school. This will continue as an ongoing
program for the SCV Section, and we hope to export the
concept to other local sections.

This year we held a joint meeting with the California
Los Padres Section at the Monterey Bay Aquarium 
Research Institute (MBARI). This meeting was well
attended by members from both sections and was a
fascinating view into the research being done at the
MBARI. The meeting also met two of the Section
goals--one for collaborations with other California
sections and the second to provide a local ACS event 
in
the southern part (i.e., Monterey and Salinas areas) 
of
the Santa Clara Valley Section.

This year, we restarted our participation in Project 
SEED in collaboration with Stanford University.  
Three students were able to do summer research 
projects at Stanford.  Our Section contributed 
$500 in funding.  We will continue to support Project 
SEED in 2010 at a higher level.

For a second year, the SCV Section conducted two
sessions at AAUW's Tech Trek held in the summer at
Stanford for Northern California 8th grade girls.  We
illustrated the properties of freezing point 
depression by making ice cream. This event was 
attended
by two groups of 80 girls each drawn from all over
Northern California. The feedback was that the girls
loved the demonstration (especially the final quality
control--the taste test!).

This year, members of the SCV Section participated in
a local career networking fair put on by HR network in
South San Francisco.  Over 150 people attended the
career networking fair. The SCV Section represented 
the ACS and outlined the career services ACS provides 
for
job searches as well as offering career advice and 
help for the unemployed chemists in the area.

To celebrate NCW, the SCV Section held its 
traditional hands-on experiments at the San Jose 
Martin
Luther King Library. However, we also added a new
event,a comedy show by Brian Malow, the science
comedian, at the Rooster T. Feathers Comedy Club in
Sunnyvale. This event was attended by over 40 ACS
members, and included jokes about a variety of science
topics.  It was a fun and different way to enjoy
National Chemistry Week.

The SCV and California Sections collaborated in a 
family science night presentation at a middle 
school.  Over 15 hands-on science experiments were 
offered to 300 middle school students and their 
families.  The experiments included identification of 
a mystery powder, Cartesian divers, paper 
chromatography of magic marker ink, and an "Elementeo"
chemistry card game. We also collaborated with the San
Jose Astronomy society who set up several 
telescopes outdoors for star gazing.

Fifteen schools spread throughout the Section 
participated in the local Chemistry Olympiad hosted 
by Santa Clara University, with approximately 125 
students taking the preliminary exam.  While the 
Section did not have a national finalist, there were 
18 regional finalists who did very well. The SCV
Section joined with the California Section in a joint
day of testing for the finalists of both sections.

The SCV provided financial support as well 
as "sweat" support for the Intel National Science Fair
in Reno Nevada.

The SCV and California ACS Sections and the AIChE 
local section have collaborated for several years to
hold workshops at local 4-year colleges to coach
chemistry and chemistry engineering students in
interviewing skills and to help fine tune their
resumes.  This year the interview workshops were held
at UC Davis and at UC Berkeley.

Our ongoing activities continued.
 Our newsletter, the Silicon Valley Chemist, contains,
among many other things, dinner meeting notifications
and our ChemPloyment ads to aid chemists seeking
employment. The newsletter is distributed mainly
electronically, and we send e-mails to our members 
when
each new issue comes out.
  We produced a printed Section Directory for the use
of our Executive Committee members.
  Our election was successfully run electronically.
  Our Hospitality and Minority Affairs committees
continue to function successfully.
  We now have four annual section awards: the Mosher 
Award, the
Ottenberg Award, the Radding Award, and the Community
College Teacher-Scholar Award. 
  Finally, we made nominations for ACS Fellows, and 
two
of our members, Richard Zare and Shirley Radding, were
honored.

1. Conduct one dinner meeting for members in the 
Monterey Bay region to extend local section 
participation opportunities to the southern reaches
of the section.  Assessment:  we conducted a meeting 
at Monterey Bay Research Institute, a venue in 
Monterey Bay area, at the southern end of our 
Section.  This was a joint event with the CA Los 
Padres Section.  It was attended by over 80 people, 
with about half from each section.  

2. Expand and invigorate the  Santa Clara Valley 
Government Affairs and Legislative Action committee 
to provide information to local legislators (both 
State and Federal) regarding science, technology, 
engineering and mathematics education.  Assessment:  
we have been very active in the statewide CA-GALA 
with written support for CA bill ACR-88, and 
participation in a planning kickoff meeting for the 
formation of a CA STEM caucus.  

3. Enhance the employment networking opportunities 
offered by the local section. This could include the 
creating of an on line database of companies
that employ chemists in the local section. 
Assessment: This goal was only partially met.  On 
March 9, we participated in a career networking day 
sponsored by the city of South San Francisco and the 
Bay area HR network.  We hosted a table with ACS 
reference materials and career support materials for 
the over 200 participants at this meeting.  The 
Section did not create the database that was 
initially planned.

1. Enhance collaborations with neighboring local 
sections (California and California Los Padres) by 
hosting at least one joint meeting.  Assessment:  
Collaborations have been significantly increased with 
both neighboring sections.  As noted above, we held a 
joint meeting with the CA Los Padres section at the 
Monterey Bay Research Institute.  This was a very 
successful meeting with over 80 people from both 
sections attending.  In addition, the CA section and 
the Santa Clara Valley Section are co-hosts for the 
March 2010 National meeting in San Francisco.  We are 
working closely together to prepare for the meeting.  
The Santa Clara Valley and CA sections have also 
collaborated on Family Science Nights at local middle 
schools.

2. Assemble a roster of dinner meeting activities 
that will appeal to a broad spectrum of the local 
section members to increase participation.  
Assessment:  the participation at dinner meetings has 
significant increased, from an average of about 20 
people to an average over about 35-40 people at each 
monthly dinner meeting.  We held an innovative 
meeting at a local community college where we learned 
to play Elementeo, a chemistry board game.  This 
meeting was attended by over 10 community college and 
high school students.  It is the only ACS meeting 
where I have heard shouts of encouragement.  We also 
held an event at a local comedy club featuring a 
Science comedian which was attended by about 20 ACS 
members as well as more people from the community.

3. Continue the outreach to the community, including 
ACS involvement in Stanford's Tech Trek, conducting 
at least one Family Science Night, and the ongoing 
participation in NCW events.  Assessment:  This goal 
was met satisfactorily.  We held two evening sessions 
at Tech Trek, a summer camp hosted at Stanford 
University by AAUW for 7th grade girls interested in 
science and math.  The students were taught a 
practical application of the principle of freezing 
point depression by making ice cream.  We also held a 
family science night with the CA section at a Daly 
City middle school (a school attended primarily by 
hispanic students).  We also held our NCW activities 
at Martin Luther King Library in San Jose.  Several 
hundred kids did hands-on chemistry experiments under 
the supervision of over 20 ACS volunteers.

4. Chair the statewide CA-GALA (California Government 
Affairs and Legislative Action Committee). 
Assessment:  The CA-GALA has helped to form a CA STEM 
legislative task force and has provided testimony and 
written letters of support for CA ACR 88 a resolution 
supporting STEM education.

1. Hold an event for local college or university
chemistry clubs for them to become acquainted and
exchange ideas.

2. Adjust our Section bylaws to reflect the new 
student membership status.

3. Have at least one tour or field trip: laboratory, 
manufacturer, museum, etc.

1. Judge at least one science fair.

2. Maintain contacts with other local sections: Los 
Padres, California, et al., and visit one or more of 
their meetings.

3. Support a high school chemistry teacher.