Personally it has been a fascinating year with the resignation of our club President in August and being asked to remain as President for a third term. After some scrambling and some great support from the board members, I feel we are back on track and in a very good place.
More importantly I want to congratulate the club with the achievement of two very significant community projects.
The Cave Springs Legacy Hall project and its $25,000 community challenge has been a great success and has promoted the camp in the community. After a discussion with Niki Inch the Fundraising chair she has updated me with the progress so far:
"We have come a long way and are on schedule for completion in late winter. We have been able to rent the building to the Valhalla Project for 20 weeks through the course of next year. They will be our first renters of the building March 20th for two weeks. We are pretty excited to be working with them. They work with first responders, (fire, police, ambulance) and military who are suffering from PTSD who require a therapy dog to get through the day. The aim is to bring the dog together with the individual in an intensive two week training period which will be held in Legacy Hall. We will be able to still conduct programming and bring schools onto the property while they are in the hall, which means we can still provide our regular programming to the community.
As far as the matching challenge goes...I was just about to write to you about that. We just received a significant donation on Friday from an individual which brought us to $24,999.35. I hope this is close enough to be considered the matching for $25,000 LOL. We have had a great deal of success with this. I know of at least two other significant donations that are coming to us with this in mind. We can't thank you enough."
The Rotary Park name was approved by Town of Lincoln Council in October and negotiations for a formal agreement will begin in January with the town. The park will begin construction in the spring of 2020 where the first phase, skateboard park, pump track and Val Fleming Butterfly Park will commence. Sarah Ane from the town will be joining us January 14 for a presentation and update around Rotary Park.
Another successful Sunset Music Series and Lamplighter Tour have concluded and I would like to thank again John Maynard & Martha Kralt for stepping up to the plate and taking the lead in these two significant events to our club.
Five Rotary Super Hero pins were awarded by myself to Cathy McNiven, John Maynard, Martha Kralt for taking the lead for our fundraisers and making them so successful. I also awarded Super Hero pins to Dave Fisk and Phil Goodwin for their efforts as part of our fundraising teams, without their efforts the events would not have been as successful.
Our Global Grant Eliminating Preventable Maternal & Infant Death in Guatemala was approved and the project will start in January 2020.
Our District Grant Convos Youth Zone Private Office Space was approved.
Working together, even though we are a small club we are achieving a lot of really good things for our community and communities around the world.
Just recently our club was recognized at the District Level with Five Awards
- 100% Foundation Giving Club ($100 US every member) 1 of 4,000 clubs world-wide
- Every Rotarian Every Year Club 1 of 3,400 clubs world -wide
- End Polio Now Donation
- Presidential Citation with Silver Distinction
- And last but not Least a Special award for the year 2018/19 Flamingo of Change Award
There are still lots of things in the works for this club and with help and volunteering from each and every one of you, we are and will continue to make a difference in this world by investing in kids and community.
Stay tuned, think about how you would like to participate, consider becoming a board member, volunteer for a committee or help with a fundraiser that interests you. Talk to friends and acquaintances, bring them to a meeting and be proud that you are a member of the Rotary Club of Lincoln.