David Barth sitting in for Simon Adler as ASA

 

 

Happy Birthday to John Rose’s wife Stephanie.

Happy Anniversary to:

Everton and Michelle Wilmot (23 years)   and

Brad and Leslie Enns (5 years)

 

50/50 pot has climbed to $75.50    It was not won by draw winners. 

 

 

Rotary goes out to make a difference in the world.  It is important to learn what people want and need as we go, so that we do not see project failures.  Communication is crucial at the global and local levels both. 

 

When individuals go about helping, they make ripples but when 1.2 million Rotarians work together, we make waves – big ones. 

When we have more, more is expected of us.  We can take actions to solve problems locally and around the world. 

 

To sum up an address by our new President of Rotary International, John said there were three key areas of focus.

To address these, John said the standard goal for strengthening clubs was for 2 new members (one of them female).  He suggested as a strong club, our goal should be for 5 new net members this year and shoot for the Citation with Distinction.   He also encouraged us to publish photos on the Rotary website of every event we do and caption it with a statement on the difference it makes. 

 

He would like us to have an alumni event for past Rotary and Rotaract members (and more) to let folks know what we are up to and push the idea of bringing more youth to Rotary.   We can also invite Rotaractors to our weekly meetings. 

 

Every member from every club is encouraged to contribute $100 per year to Polio Plus which will be matched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   An additional $100 per member should go to the annual fund.  95% of those funds are coming back to Rotarians in the form of global grants.

 

John also stressed the role of microfinance in helping with poverty alleviation around the world.   The district has made a commitment to help raise funds from the clubs to contribute to a $400,000 fund that will be used for microfinance in Honduras through Opportunity International.  This could be leveraged up to $2M and support the creation of up to 2,800 jobs through the non-profit in Honduras.   He has urged our club and all clubs in the district to contribute $1,500 to this initiative. 

 

With climate change and global conflict, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to immigration.   He believes we have to help people where they are in order to stem the flood of people leaving poor countries due to conflict and extreme poverty.   We as Rotarians have the capacity to have an impact and make a difference when it comes to global poverty. 

 

Todd Aitchison then thanked John for his leadership in the district and for his talk today. 

 

Jerome adjourned the meeting.