This past week we were happy to welcome our current District Governor, Ramesh Ferris, as our speaker. Ramesh is a member of the Rotary Club of Whitehorse, Yukon and spoke to us via Zoom. Ramesh is a Polio survivor who has dedicated his life to increasing awareness and raising funds for Polio in Canada and around the world. In 2008 he hand-cycled across Canada from Victoria, BC, to Cape Spear in Newfoundland to raise funds and awareness for polio eradication, education and rehabilitation.
He encouraged our club to work together, lean on each other for support and brainstorm for new ideas on ways we can make our community and our world a better place. He emphasized that in Rotary, you do not do anything alone.
He told us that we have a strong team leading our Rotary District 5370 with eighteen committees to help support our fifty-six active clubs. He encouraged us to volunteer for District committees and also to continue our strong contributions to the Rotary Annual, Endowment. Polio and Disaster Funds. He said that one of his goals this year is to ask each club to think about physical accessibility and to come up with an accessibility plan that will allow handicapped members to take part in our activities. He is also encouraging Rotarians to create short videos to share our Rotary experiences with others. He then encouraged us to attend the upcoming Rotary Conference, Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork, which will take place in Whitehorse, May 15-17.
His overall message to us was - be innovative, keep trying and don’t be afraid to fail, be afraid not to try.
We would like to thank Ramesh for taking the time to speak to us and his very inspirational talk.