This was Tom's last official visit to our our club.  After serving the district as Assistant District Governor for three years he will continue next year as District Membership Chair.  Our own Davinder Grewal will replace Tom in July as ADG.  Davinder thanked Tom for all his hard work and acknowledged she had big footprints to follow.  Tom discussed the District Conference where we will have a representative from Rotary International that is from Nepal.  Tom will be collecting cash to give to him at the Conference.  Tom also told us about his own club's Rotary Day which was an Easter Egg hunt for the children in Tsawwassen.  Tom was a last minute stand in for the Easter Bunny and when he got home he realized he couldn't get out of his costume without help.  His wife was not there and the neighbours weren't home.  So after sweating for a while he actually stopped a car on the road and asked the driver to unzip him.  The lady was a little apprehensive but complied with his request.  If she hadn't been from out of town I am sure Tom would have asked her to join his club!

Tom reviewed some of the changes mooted by Rotary for entering a challenging period in the organization's history, at least in North America. A new website is being created, for example, which is designed to encourage clubs to promote themselves, both for what they represent to their communities and where and when they meet. Additionally, the message is changing from "come to ... club" to "come to a rotary meeting ...", and there will be new promotional materials that the various clubs can freely use. Tom also reviewed the changing Lower Mainland situation : there are too many small (substitute 'struggling' if you like) clubs that might benefit by amalgamation with others. Certainly this is a solution to continuing losses in numbers of clubs, though the loss of autonomy will obviously create some issues just by itself.
 

Tom brought a beautiful light to give to President Shail to thank him for his leadership this past year.

This week's bottle went to President Elect Michael Frost.