President's message # 34

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE We have just returned from the District 50/50 Conference in Everett, Washington. Our Port Moody Club had a great presence, attended by 10 of our members and spouses! Linda, Gayle, Ann, Nick, Keith and his wife Heather, Dan and his wife Marion, and Cindy and I. The Conference kicked off Thursday evening with a boat cruise around the Puget Sound. This cruise featured a buffet dinner, and dancing to a great band. A good time was had by all, especially enjoyed by our two GSE Teams, one from the Philippines and the other from England. In fact two of the Philippine members, I thought were part of the band. One was playing a great saxophone the other young lady was belting out great rock songs, Allot of people experienced a little slower start to Friday than they had intended, me included?! After the opening ceremony and lunch we attended an informative Plenary Session and then were taken to the Future of Flight and Aviation Tour Centre at Boeing. Having never been there before, we found it very interesting and admired the splendid building that it was in. We had a good dinner and enjoyed the speeches, all set up in marquees on the roof of the Flight Center.Saturday was filled with various plenary sessions covering everything from International Service, Water, Health and hunger tutorial, public relations, outbound GSE teams and interesting speakers. Saturday night of course was the Governors Ball and great excuse for everyone to get dressed up. The main speaker, Dr. Cliff Dochterman was hilarious, he is a truly funny man and his timing is still superb, considering he is over 80 years old! His credentials are long and very impressive. Dr Cliff has achieved so much in Rotary and his message and delivery was valid and current. He is one gentleman that does deserve a standing ovation.