Rotary's District Governor Lisa Faith Massey A Guest Speaker

The Pasadena Rotary was honored to have their District Governor Lisa Faith Massey as guest speaker for the regular Friday meeting.  Pictured from left are Rotarian Jackie Barmore, Past Governor Bob Gebhard, Governor Massey and Club President Niki Whiteside.  Governor Massey is a third generation Houstonian and a 3^rd generation Rotarian.  She praised Pasadena Rotary Club for the Club’s efforts and contributions to Rotary honoring specifically for their special efforts; Jackie Barmore, Herman Weber, Paul Covell, Lee Clark, John Moon, Bill Barmore, Ted Sullivan and Ken Haesley.  She is a member of the Rotary Club of Harrisburg where she has risen through the ranks serving as Director, Board Chairman, Assistant Governor and now District Governor.  She outlined her three main goals for her term of office; 1.  Fight illiteracy; 2. Promote the Rotary Foundation and 3.  Build and retain membership.   She quoted a surprising statistic that there are 30 million Americans that can not read or write.  The Rotary Foundation is the benevolent arm of Rotary and provides aid and assistance to people worldwide including promoting education, for the young and adult population, pre-natal, delivery and post natal care to the indigent in Nicaragua and creating a sanitary source of water for many 3^rd world countries.  She talked about club growth saying that it is natural for members to join and resign, but that if the trend of declining membership continues the future of Rotary (and all clubs) is bleak.   She proposed a modest goal of adding one new member to each club, each quarter.  Sources of new members are young professionals, retirees, volunteers who help with Rotary projects and young people who have previously been honored as Junior Rotarians and have been part of the International Youth Exchange.  She addressed the value of retention of members, saying “It does little good to get new members if we can’t keep them.”  She stated that members stay if they feel that they are contributing to the welfare of the community, if they have meaningful responsibilities and if the Club has a healthy and friendly social program, both at the Club and outside the Club.

 

Governor Massey’s enthusiastic presentation and obvious passion for Rotary won her a standing ovation from members, who are looking forward to a banner year led by new District Governor Lisa Faith Massey.