At our meeting this week we were pleased to have guest Marilyn Mucha from the new Riverview Impact Club who told us about some of the opportunities for fellowship and volunteer service that are associated with Rotary but are not formal Rotary Clubs. She said that there are many different types of Fellowship clubs for people with a specific interest to get to know each other better. If you have an interest in anything from skiing to gin there is a fellowship club for you. She also explained how the most recent type of Rotary Impact Clubs work. They are made up of non Rotary members who get together informally for fellowship and to volunteer their time to help in their local community. Marilyn then made a presentation from the ClubRunner organisation to Hans Granholm, who kick started the use of ClubRunner software for club management in our district.
This was followed by our incoming Club President, Norman Leach, who gave us a preview of his hopes and plans for our club over the coming year, a Back to the Future experience. Norman said that since he is a historian, he would like us to go back to some of the basics that Rotary does best. He reminded us that the first project Rotary did back in the beginning in Chicago was to build a public washroom for the citizens of their city. One of the core goals of Rotary is to make our surrounding area and the world beyond a better place for all, and this is what he would like our club to work towards over the next year.
Our meetings will be held at noon on the first and third Tuesday of each month, with the option to join remotely via ZOOM. This way those who are out of town may still attend and keep up with what is going on. The second week of the month will include a ‘Meeting with a Purpose’, where we do something together to make a difference in our community in some way. In order to get to know each other better, each regular meeting will include a short segment where a few people give a short talk about something they have done in their life that others in the club may not know. This will also include Table Topics with short videos or discussions on things that Rotary does and things that our club could do. We will also engage people who are involved with our current International projects in Africa and the Philippines to tell us how those projects have changed the lives of the people around them. Finally, once a quarter, we will have a special meeting where we each invite people to come in and get a taste of who we are and what we do and we will bring in a speaker from a local group that we currently support or may be interested in supporting.
Norman would also like to publicise our club and our members more on Facebook and Instagram by making and posting short video clips of some of our members talking about what brought them to Rotary and when and how they knew they were a Rotarian.
He said that we need to put out the message to people that if you want to do good, come do it with Rotary.