District 7070 hosted all of the Rotary District 7070 Club Presidents and their Rotary Club Rotary Foundation Directors/Chairs at The Oshawa Golf and Curling Club, to an excellent meal, on November 23, 2017, during Rotary Foundation Month. Here is what happened....
District Governor Neil Phillips welcomed everyone and turned the meeting over to Past District Governor (and current District Rotary Foundation Annual Programs Fund Chair) Ted Morrison who chaired the Rotary Foundation portion of the District Presidents' meeting. Ted was filling in for PDG and current District 7070 Rotary Foundation Chair Michael Bell who was in the US with relatives for the Thanksgiving weekend.
Just before Neil turned over the meeting to Ted Morrison, Neil first introduced Past District Governor ( and current District 7070 Rotary Foundation Endowment Fund Chair) Bill Patchett . Bill was followed by some of the best speakers in the Rotary World today to tell us all about all of the good that is done with our donations to the Rotary Foundation. We heard from Past District Governor (and current District 7070 Rotary Foundation Annual Programs Fund Chair) Ted Morrison; Dr. Bob Scott, the Immediate Past Chairman of the International Polio Plus Committee and Past District Governor (and the current District 7070 Chair of the Rotary Foundation Grants Program) Lars Henriksson.
PDG Bill Patchett thanked all clubs and club presidents for a very successful 2016-17 Rotary Year in terms of The Rotary Foundation, highlighted by 4 Arch Klumph Society members and 6 major Donors and as a result, our donations to all funds of the Rotary Foundation were over the million dollar mark. Bill noted that our District 7070 is number 1 in Canada in giving to the Rotary Foundation. He also said that we have a long way to go to meet that level this year and urged everyone to encourage their members to donate to The Rotary Foundation. He noted the Ted Morrison is still looking for the commitment from 100% of the clubs in our district to make a commitment to donate funds to End Polio and to The Rotary Foundation for this new 2016-17 Rotary year. The address to which to send your contribution is The Rotary Foundation Canada, c/o 911600, P.O. Box 4090, Stn. A , Toronto, On M5W 0E9. Please indicate Annual Fund or Polio on the memo line.
Bill said that with help from Carol Seabrook Ferguson (Major Gifts), they will take you out to dinner and review all of the options if you and any of your members are looking to become Major Donors to The Rotary Foundation.
After dinner, we saw an excellent video on The Rotary Foundation. Be sure to use the link and show it to your club members at a future Rotary meeting.
PDG and current District 7070 Chair of the Rotary Foundation Annual Programs Fund Ted Morrison talked to the Club Presidents about leading by example and donating to the Annual Programs Fund, and encouraging all of their club members to do the same. Ted hoped that all clubs will have a speaker talking about The Rotary Foundation, in November, Rotary Foundation Month. Ted said that The Rotary Foundation is the engine that drives Rotary and its clubs to do so much good in the world. He talked about the donations going to grants and the Share system, and that our District gets half of the money back after three years to turn into grants.
Ted noted our District goals for 2017-18: $210,000 US to the Annual Programs Fund and an additional $140,000 US to the Polio Plus Fund. He noted that Rotary International President Ian Riseley has urged all Rotary clubs to raise at least $1,500 Us for PolioPlus this Rotary year. He congratulated everyone for the very successful Rotary Foundation Walk in September raising over $100,000 for The Rotary Foundation. He added that we are about halfway to our District goal (Annual Programs Fund and the Polio Fund) and asked each President to keep putting gentle pressure on their club members to make a donation.
He talked about everyone should give something. And if you can't give $100, please make a donation EVERY YEAR TO THE EVERY ROTARIAN EVERY YEAR PLAN. PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN!!!! Ted also talked about the graduated awards we can receive as our donations to The Rotary Foundation grow, year after year. And our donations are tax deductible. We can even put our donations in our will and become Benefactors to The Rotary Foundation.
Ted reminded all of the Presidents to select individuals from their club to attend the Grants management Seminar, which will be held early in the new year, so that their club can be certified to apply for grants. He also urged everyone to make a donation to the Rotary Foundation, which can be done so easily, right out of your bank account on a monthly basis, by way of Rotary Direct. Support our efforts year round by making a recurring gift. You choose how much and how often you want to give— it's a simple and secure way to make a big impact. Online contributions can be made monthly, quarterly, or annually. Direct enrollment form or enroll by phone at +1-866-976-8279. To update your existing recurring giving, contact us at rotarydirect@rotary.org or call +1-866-976-8279. For security reasons, changes to your credit card information should be made by phone.
Be sure to see Ted's presentation on how the three Funds of the Rotary Foundation work on our District website right here.
PDG Dr. Bob Scott, who has been our advocate for raising funds for polio eradication for the last 31, showed us why, as he showed us photos of children with polio. He gave an update on the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and its partners: Rotary, The WHO, the CDC, UNICEF, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the governments of the world. Bob Scott thanked the Gates Foundation, who, at the Rotary International Convention in Atlanta, renewed his commitment to continue to match 2 for 1 every new dollar Rotary commits to polio eradication, through 2019-20 which will mean $450 million more for polio eradication. Bob took us back to the days when there were 1,000 new cases of polio per day in the world to today. Bob noted that only Afghanistan and Pakistan remain with polio cases. At this time in 2016, there were 20 new cases of polio Afghanistan and 4 in Pakistan. In the 2017 Calendar Year to date: there have been a total of 15 new cases: 10 in Afghanistan; 5 in Pakistan. He noted that in the next 5 days in Pakistan, there will be a National Day of Immunization (a NID , for short) when 38 million children will be vaccinated by 12,000 teams of volunteers. Bob said that there are still many challenges: the missed children; the killings of some of the volunteers; the gaps in polio surveillance; and the funds so much needed to get the job done. He even mentioned the wars that are still being waged. But when the fighting subsides, vaccinators are there administering the vaccine.
Bob remembers back to 1988 at the Rotary International Convention in Philadelphia when it was announced that Rotarian had raised $240 million to help eradicate polio from the world. Rotary has raised $1.8 billion US funds and has spent $1.7 billion on polio eradication. In that $ 1.8 billion total, Bob said that Rotarians have raised $1.07 billion and Bill and Melinda Gates have raised $615 million for Rotarians to do do the work. In the next 3 years alone, we will need $150 million. He reminded us that there are still 60 countries in the world that still have to go on vaccinating for at least 3 more years, due to the health conditions in the countries.
Dr. Bob Scott thanked Rotarians. He told us that since Rotary stared, 10 million cases of polio have been averted; 1.5 million deaths have been averted. He summed it all up by saying, “without YOU, we could not do it”. And he concluded his presentation with a slide of some very happy, smiling young children, who will never get polio.
PDG Lars Heriksson, our District 7070 Grants Chair gave us a brief description of how the money raised from the Rotary Foundation, is kept for three years and then given back to Rotarians to use. Half of the funds raised from our District, come right back to us, to spend on Global and District Grants. He added that there are many Humanitarian Grants that are resulting in many service projects worldwide. He talked about the Global Grant money being used for the Polio Fund, Peace Scholars, Global Grant Scholars, and Vocational Training Teams. He noted that the Canadian Government has put forth money for $1.2 million in grants for humanitarian projects each year for 5 years. He encouraged Clubs to work together in the District, to pool their grant applications on a project. He encouraged everyone to contact himself, during the grant application process. He said the money for District Grants are now completed but is waiting for approval from Roary International on two grants for Zimbabwe before he can release the District grants. And there were actually more requests ($90,000) for Funds this year, than the District can handle ($73,000 only available , based on the amount raised by our District). As a result , each grant application will get a portion of their request to ensure that each grant application gets funds to do some great work in the world. The answer will always be : the more we raise, the more we can spend on grants 3 years later.
Lars also noted to stay tuned for the date and location of this year's Grants Management Seminar and be sure to have your representatives from your clubs ready to attend early in the new year. Every club in the District must be certified, through this seminar, in order to receive grant money.
District Governor Neil Phillips noted that DG Elect Mary Lou Harrison said that of the 2,009 Rotarians in District 7070, only 88 were registered for Rotary Direct, these easiest way to donate to The Rotary Foundation. He issued a challenge to all of the Rotarians in the room: since everyone enjoyed the meal tonight, he urged everyone to go home and sign up for Rotary Direct. He issued another challenge: if we can get 200 Rotarians signed up by June 30, 2017, DG Neil will give one of tose Rotary Direct registrants some of his finest wine.