Welcome to another issue of our bulletin! Find out who our upcoming speakers are, what we covered during the last weekly meeting, and learn more about our Member of the Month.
September Zoom Meeting
The theme for September in Rotary is Basic Education and Literacy.
This month emphasizes the importance of education and literacy as fundamental rights and aims to empower communities to support these initiatives.
One of the vibrant speakers for our Club's September Zoom meeting is Melissa Wilson.
Melissa has been teaching in Georgia for 15 years and currently teaches accelerated & AP math courses. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering from Georgia Tech and a Master's Degree in Education from UGA. Over the years she has been on committees for many school and district initiatives, previously served as department chair, and leads professional development. She is also an AP Calculus grader for College Board.
Club member and Past President Melona Sossah will talk about her involvement in education and the SFK program.
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Sherri Crouse, co-chairperson for the D6950 C.A.R.T. - Coins for Alzheimer's Research Trust will talk briefly about the upcoming golf tournament for the organization.
A quick update on The CART Fund, a Rotary charity (four-stars from Charity Navigator) dedicated to finding a cure, treatment or prevention of Alzheimer's Disease, and also provide additional information on our upcoming CART Golf Tournament. This year, the golf tournament will be held on Friday, September 25th at Dunedin Golf Club and will also include a GOLF BALL DROP!
More on the CART Fund from D6950 Chair Randy Nillson:
I wanted to say THANK YOU to all the Rotarians and Rotary Clubs across District 6950 that supported The CART Fund last Rotary year! Our district raised over $33,600 for CART and about 75% of all our clubs supported this Rotary charity!
Please know that The CART Fund is so grateful and appreciative for your generous donation as 100% of all gifts goes directly to Alzheimer's research.
To that end, Rotary year 2025-2026 was record-breaking in terms of gifts to CART from Rotarians and clubs across the country. Because of this extraordinary support, I wanted to share a bit more detail about this year's CART grants and research projects.
The CART Fund Annual Meeting and GRANT UPDATE:
On Friday, July 31st, The CART Fund held its Annual Meeting in Charlotte, NC and awarded ten grant recipients $4.55 million in funds for Alzheimer's research! To put this in context, last year, CART awarded $2 million in research grants and that was a record in grant funding, so to more than double the funding this year, is extraordinary! In total, CART has awarded close to $20 million in research grants since 1999.
Below are just 2 of the award recipients and their research projects:
$500,000 (Roger Ackerman Memorial Grant) - Kapil Ramachandran, Columbia University
- Research aims to answer a critical unanswered question in Alzheimer's disease: how harmful Tau protein clumps first form in the brain. If successful, this work could shift the field from treating damage after it occurs to preventing Alzheimer's at its very beginning.
$500,000 (Dr. John Trojanowski Memorial Grant) - Peter Sicinski, Harvard University
- Research explores whether a class of already-approved cancer drugs (called CDK4/6 inhibitors) could be repurposed to treat Alzheimer's disease. If successful, this work could fast-track a new Alzheimer's treatment using existing, FDA-approved drugs, significantly shortening the timeline to clinical impact.
For more information on The CART Fund or our 2026 CART Research grant recipients, please visit, https://www.cartfund.org/news/
GOLF TOURNAMENT at Dunedin Golf Club to benefit CART:
We invite every Rotarian to join us on Friday, September 25th at the historic Dunedin Golf Club with registration beginning at 12:00 Noon. Players, volunteers, sponsors and spectators welcome!
- Single-player fee: $300; team of 4 players: $1,000 (registration form attached)
- Hole-in-One Prize sponsored by Dimmitt Cadillac
- Prizes for Closest to the Pin; Longest Drive and Putting Contest
To make this event even more fun and exciting, we will have a helicopter drop 1,000 individually numbered golf balls on hole #13 to raise additional money for CART. Each golf ball is $10, and the first ball that lands in the hole wins $1,000 (flyer attached).
Please share this information with your club and help us sell all 1,000 golf balls to make this tournament extra-extra special!
For more information about the golf tournament and the Golf Ball Drop, please contact Sherri Crouse, Rotary Club of Tierra Verde at 304-416-2097.
Lastly, if you or your club needs a CART presentation or Blue CART buckets, please let me know. I am always happy to meet you and your fellow Rotarians and share information about this worthy Rotary charity!
THANK YOU always for your support of CART and Rotary~
Invitations: Rotary Fellowship Focus and eClub Meeting Invite
Dear fellow Rotarians,
I am writing from the Rotary E-Club of Southern Scotland to invite you and your members to an online event we are holding next week.
Rotary has more than 100 Fellowships, bringing together members who share a particular interest, hobby or profession. We thought it would be interesting to get to know some of them better, so each month we will be hosting an informal Fellowship Focus conversation with members of a different Fellowship.
Our first session will be:
Wednesday, 2 September 2026 7pm BST / 8pm CEST Online via Google Meet
For our first conversation, we’ll be joined by Felix Heintz from the Rotarian Metalhead Fellowship and Johanna Weberhofer from the Rotary Fellowship for Runners.
Felix and Johanna will each spend around 15 minutes telling us a little about their Fellowship, what they enjoy about being part of it, and how others can get involved. We will then open the conversation for questions and discussion.
Everyone is welcome, including Rotarians, Rotaractors, partners, family members and anyone else who might be interested!
If you would like to join us, please reply to this email with a simple "I will join" and you will receive a calendar invite with the Google Meet link.
Please do feel free to pass the invitation on to your members or anyone else you think might enjoy it.
We would love to welcome you to our club next week.
With warm Rotary greetings,
Carla Jedani
President, Rotary E-Club of Southern Scotland
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NEPAL - Thursday, Sept 3 2026 @ 13:00 BST Monthly Meeting- HOW TO HELP
WELCOME Fellow Rotarians, Rotaractors, Interactors and Friends
JOIN US
On the FIRST THURSDAY, September the 3rd, 2026 @ 13:00 BST which is (8:00 EST, 13:00 BST, 17:30 IST, 17:45 Nepal, 19:00 Thailand, 20:00 AWST & 22:00 AEST) –
Rotary eClub of Innovation’s monthly meeting will be focusing on Nepal’s immediate disaster relief support and what can be done in collaboration with Nepal’s Interactors, Rotaractors and Rotarians who are dealing with this devastating situation as we speak!
We will hear from RC Kavre- Banepa’s Rotarians, as well as Nepal’s Rotaractors and Interactors what they are experiencing and get a clear view of impact and action on the ground. They will let us know what we can do and how we can do it.
If you want to help Nepal and the Nepalese, please join us and invite Rotarians, Rotaractors, Interactors and friends, all essential and needed for support!
The conversation will be led by:
Hira Sharma Nepal
Founder and Principal, Vidhya Sagar Secondary school, Hira is a Past President, Assistant Governor (2015-16), and District Rotaract Committee Chair (2017-18). He’s been on the District Training Team since 2019 and is the current RID 3292 New Member Orientation Sub- Committee Chair.
Rotary eClub of Innovation’s Facilitators:
John Pepper, Thailand
Lina Souki-Schmidt, Australia
ALL members and friends of the club are enthusiastically encouraged to attend and bring their guests.
Rotary eClub of Innovation "Our global fellowship changes lives."
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D6950 News
Dear Rotarians,
I am excited to share a new initiative for our district: the Rotary District 6950 Annual Partnership Program for the 2026–2027 Rotary year.
This program is designed to bring together Rotarians, Rotary clubs, businesses, organizations, community leaders, and friends of Rotary who want to support the work we are doing throughout District 6950. Our partners will receive recognition through district communications, newsletters, social media, Rotary Means Business events, leadership and training programs, Foundation events, and our District Conference.
This opportunity is not limited to Rotarians. There are millions of people, businesses, organizations, and community leaders throughout the Tampa Bay area and across our district who may benefit from becoming a partner with Rotary District 6950.
Some of you may own a business or lead an organization that would be a great fit for this program. Others may know a business owner, professional, community partner, employer, vendor, or organization that would value the opportunity to support Rotary while connecting with our members throughout the district.
And if becoming a sponsor personally is not the right fit for you, I would ask you to consider sharing this opportunity with someone you know.
We have created several partnership levels so that there is an opportunity for almost anyone to participate, from our Presenting and Impact Champion Partners to our District Supporter level and anonymous contributions.
Our sponsorship partners will help us strengthen our clubs, support leadership development and training, improve communication throughout the district, expand Rotary Means Business, support Rotary Foundation initiatives, and help make our signature events successful, including A Night at the Museum on November 15, 2026, and the District 6950 Conference at the Art Ovation Hotel in Sarasota, June 3–6, 2027.
I have attached a flyer outlining each of the partnership opportunities, and you can use the link below to learn more and submit a partnership application:
After the application is submitted, our District Treasurer will follow up with an invoice and secure payment instructions.
The success of our district depends on all of us working together, and your help in sharing this opportunity will make a tremendous difference. Whether you choose to participate, encourage your Rotary club to participate, or simply introduce us to a potential partner, I would be very grateful.
If you have questions or would like to talk through a sponsorship opportunity, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or your Assistant Governor.
Thank you for everything you do for Rotary District 6950 and for the communities we serve. I am incredibly grateful for your support and excited about what we can accomplish together this year.
With gratitude,
Mark Middleton
District Governor 2026–2027
Rotary District 6950
On 28 August 1913: Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands opens the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, an international law administrative building housing the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Built between 1907 and 1913, largely funded by a $1.5 million donation from American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. In addition to the PCA, the site now houses the International Court of Justice (the principal judicial organ of the United Nations), the Peace Palace Library, and The Hague Academy of International Law.
Peace Palace Library - Jaarverslag 2024
Peace Palace Library - Alchetron, The Free SocialEncyclopedia
Wednesday, 2 September 2026
7pm BST / 8pm CEST
Online via Google Meet
