On Tuesday, we heard from our District 5370 Governor for the coming 2017/18 year, Frank Reitz. Frank and his wife of fifty years, Barb, are long time members of the Ft. McMurray Rotary club.
The evening before, Monday the 30th, the club put on a 'Meet and Greet' evening organized by Diana Parker. The venue was the Bordeaux room at the Moose Factory.
He began his presentation with a video clip from a presentation given recently by Ian Risely, our International President on the Rotary theme for this year, ‘Rotary- Making a Difference’. He then spoke about how Rotarians continue to make a difference in our communities and the world at large through many various means. He reminded us that the basis for all of this is the local club membership, and how we need to encourage and strengthen our membership at the local level in order to achieve our goals. He spoke of how each club has it’s own culture, which in turn provides a wide array of choices for prospective members. We need to ensure that prospective members are aware of the obligations, such as regular attendance and club participation, as well as the benefits to joining Rotary.
Each club has it’s own community and international charities that it supports, and these help to give each club it’s own character. He commended our club on our excellent work with young people in Edmonton, in particular our support of our high school Interact club and the scholarships that we offer. He encouraged us to continue to support the Rotary Foundation and the Polio Eradication Fund. He said that WHO requires three years of no reported cases before a disease is considered eradicated, so we need to continue to support this fund for at least another three years. He mentioned the upcoming Presidential Peace Building Conference on Environmental Sustainability and Peace to be held next February in Vancouver and encouraged us to attend, if possible.
In closing he thanked us for our contributions to the Rotary Ft. McMurray Fire Relief Fund and spoke of how they have had to broaden the scope of the fund, as the original scope only included capital items (community owned buildings), most of which were not impacted by the fire. They have now broadened the terms of reference so that social services will to be able to provide counselling and other services, which are in high demand, as the impact of the personal home losses continues to affect people now and into the future.
DG Frank presented President Vince with certificates of appreciation from Shelterbox recognizing the club's contributions in 2015-16 and 2016-17.
