Friday, December 12, 2025: No Seminar

As the Christmas-Hanukkah Holiday season is well under way with most of us a bit overwhelmed, there is no seminar this Friday, December 16. Christmas being on Thursday, December 25, there will also be no seminar on Friday, December 26, the day after Christmas, St. Stephen’s Day in Ireland most of Europe aka Boxing Day in the UK, nor on the day after New Year’s Day, Friday, January 2, 2026.

Your Weekly Update newsletter will next be emailed on January 5, 2026. Happy New Year to all Seminarians and their families!

IT’S THAT $ TIME OF THE YEAR for the payment of Sac Sem annual dues. Your Board recommended that dues remain the same as 2025, $200 for 2026. Please send a check made out to ‘Sacramento Seminar Inc.’ to our Treasurer, Dennis Wheatley, 72 Heritage Drive, San Rafael, CA 94901.

If you would like to transfer the funds by e-banking we suggest using Zelle rather than PayPal, the age-appropriate instructions are:

1)   Determine if your bank is in the Zelle network (most major banks are but not all of the smaller banks).

2)   In your banks on-line interface please select ‘transfer funds’ and put in Dennis Wheatley’s email address dennis@triticum.com and this should then bring up ‘Sacramento Seminar’ (we bank with Wells Fargo).

3)   Put in the appropriate sum (see above)

4)   Confirm payment.

We have tested this with Wells Fargo. Your funds really do end up in the Sacramento Seminar account – NOT Dennis’!

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UPCOMING SEMINARS:

Our first speaker of the new year is Josh Fryday, Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor https://joshfryday.com/ The date is Friday, January 9, 2026. The time is 12:15 p.m. A past mayor of the City of Novato and chair of the Governor's Office of Service and Community Engagement is a member of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s cabinet. The U.S. Navy veteran will be introduced by Seminarian and past State Assemblymember Dion Aroner.

RSVP TO ATTEND any upcoming seminar. To assist the kitchen staff with planning for our Friday lunchtime meetings, please notify DENNIS WHEATLEY at dennis@triticum.com NO LATER THAN MID-DAY ON the WEDNESDAY BEFORE EVERY SEMINAR if you plan to attend and indicate if you’ll be bringing a guest. Dennis DOES NOT need to know you are not attending. Valet Parking: If there are less than (10) ten sign-ups, there will be no valet. To register for valet parking contact our newly reelected Chair Greg Ryken at (415) 215-3775 or email him the Wednesday before seminars at Greg@rykenlaw.com

On Thursday, January 15, 2026, Sacramento Seminar is co-sponsoring with the University Club (atop Nob Hill at California and Powell Streets) a conversation with Richard Lyons, the Chancelor of the University of California at Berkeley. Check him out at https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/about/chancellor-lyons-biography

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. which means there’s a 30-minute cocktail half hour before the program starts at 6:00 p.m. This is your chance to learn all you need to know about U.C. Berkeley. Go Golden Bears!   

John Kabateck, California Director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses https://www.nfib.com/california/ is our speaker on Friday, January 16. NFIB’s philosophy is that “Small businesses are not smaller versions of bigger businesses. They often have different difficulties in remaining solvent and policies that lump all business together often do more harm than good.” The Glendale native and USC grad attributes part of his success in working with people to having grown up in a Hollywood family. His mother was musical director for the Ernie Kovacs Show, and his father produced the Criswell Predicts TV program.

U.C. Berkeley Professor Eric Schickler will be our featured speaker on Friday, January 23. Professor Schickler is considered one of the foremost Congressional scholars. https://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/person/eric-schickler He’s currently completing a co-authored with Paul Pierson, “Madison Upside Down: The Rise of Nationalized Polarization and the Crisis of the American Constitutional Order.”

There’ll be a Sac Sem roundtable on Friday, January 30 starting at 12:15 p.m. The roundtable’s topic we’ll be announced in January. Many seminarians tell us that they miss roundtables. They’ll be scheduled more often in 2026. In the years after the Seminar was established, roundtables were the norm and Friday speakers the exception.  

“Ace” Smith is our guest on Friday, February 13. Averell “Ace” Smith is the campaign guru behind Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom. Capitol Weekly says he’s “a legend among California political consultants, the San Francisco-based Smith has handled campaigns for president, governor, senator, local contenders and, perhaps most memorably, his own father.” (Past Seminarian and San Francisco District Attorney) Arlo Smith. https://capitolweekly.net/oral-histories/ace-smith-political-consultant/ Ace will be introduced by Sac Sem’s new speakers/program chair Brian Chase.

PASSING THE BATON: Sac Sem’s Speakers program during the past few years has been terrific due to the work of Mike Fitzgerald. Thank you, Mike! Our new speakers/program chair is Seminarian Brian Chase. He has big shoes to fill. We’re all looking for another year of great class programs. A reminder: our speakers/program chair needs members’ assistance. If Seminarians have a personal relationship with a potential Sac Sem speaker. pass on the information to Brian at brian@brianchase.com

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OTHER THOUGHTS: “I’ve done the calculations, and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.” Fran Lebowitz