District Conference 2004

The Edmonton Riverview Rotary Club were our hosts for the annual district convention. The opening keynote speaker, Jim Beaubien set the tone of the convention with an excellent presentation on Leadership in the Volunteer Sector. The ideas he presented are not only valuable for our volunteer activities in Rotary but also valid for our daily work lives; essentially in our dealings with people. Tips such as investing in our high performers, reinforcing positive behaviours, and recognizing that our actions must be done sincerely (everyone has a "crap" detector and know when we, as leaders, are not walking the talk. Other excellent sessions included: Major Doug Martin (Canadian military representative at NORAD in Colorado Springs, U.S.) gave a presentation about Rotary in the Media and gave his top 10 tips to promote Rotary (which I will share with the Executive and anyone else who'd like to know). Frank Goldberg, from Omaha Nebraska, represented Rotary International and brought greetings from President Jonathan Majiyagbe. Frank's message included the notion of finding a way to get things done, not finding excuses. The Youth Session focused identified the wide assortment of Adventure Programs offered through Rotary i.e Adventures in Citizenship, Technology, Agriculture, Music, Forestry, Northern Youth Experience, Youth Enrichment and RYLA. Other Youth programs discussed incuded: RYPEN, Interact and Bill Given, from Grande Prairie, did a presentation regarding Rotaract. We also had a presentation regarding Clean Scene. While not an official Rotary program, Clean Scene is a worthwhile program aimed at drug prevention in youth. Check out their website at www.cleanscene.ca where there are separate sections for parents and for youth. The International Projects Panel had five presentations: a girls school in Ethiopia; education supplies in Belize; National Polio Immunization Day in India (by Grande Prairie's Chris Anderson); leprosy in the Dominican Republic, and being an Rotary international volunteer. These presentations were certainly inspirational. The final keynote address was by Lesra Martin. Some of you may remember the movie about Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter. Lesra is the young black man from a New York City ghetto who moved to Toronto, learned how to read and write at age 15, and was able to assist Rubin's pardon from prison. Today, Lesra is a lawyer and accomplished speaker whose presentation at the conference dealt with "Literacy & Education, The Power to Make a Difference". From a social perspective, there was a variety of activities to partake. The event began with a golf tournament (which I unfortunately missed), on Friday night we attended the Dinner Theatre to see the musical "Carousel", and on Saturday night District Governor Judy had her ball with the theme of Rotary through the decades. A variety of costumes were evident from 1920s gangsters and flappers to hippies from the 60s. Most in our group were in 1950s poodle skirts and jeans attire. Next years convention will be close to home in Fort St. John, so plan to attend. At the brunch Sunday morning, they indicated that mysteriously their bell went missing at the curling bonspiel and appears to be on a world adventure sending picture postcards of the bell from foreign lands. The Fort St. John club asked for their bell to return from its world trip. I'm sure it will eventually make its way home.