President Stacie began her Rotary year with the gavel by calling the membership to order a few minutes past twelve and asked Dr Dave Hartman to offer the invocation. Stacie then shared that only one person had volunteered to serve on the music committee for the coming year so she asked the membership for three volunteers to join her at the podium so she could “demonstrate” how simple it is to lead the membership in the pledge to the flag and the song. Lisa Stephens-Musick, David Kelley and David Spencer were the volunteers that came forward. Stacie then led the membership in the pledge to the flag followed by the singing of two verses of “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. We clapped hands and stomped feet to the a cappella version of the song since our pianist, Susan, wasn’t with us today.
No guests joined us today and we had no updates for the Sunshine Report.
Carol Murray recognized two members who had birthdays to celebrate: David Kelley and John Mayfield. Carol added a new dimension to the birthday recognition by having each celebrant don birthday hats, wristbands, birthday pins and stickers and then each had to select a question from a jar and openly respond to it. Each did have the opportunity to select a second question if they didn’t like their first pick. Each question was designed to have the birthday recipient share something about themselves to the membership.
Stacie then asked Andy Kocher to come to the podium and present perfect attendance certificates to two members who were not able to attend the annual dinner meeting. Certificates were presented to Bill Miller for 17 years of perfect attendance and to Jackie Lebow for 24 years of perfect attendance. Stacie then paused to recognize all the Board Members for the last year with President Arnold and the new members that were joining the Board this year.
Afterward, Carol Murray returned to the podium with the Brag Bucket. Shirley Craft, Noel Filer and Josh Phillips shared brags for the week. During the brags it was disclosed that our club had attained the requisite requirements to be labeled a “Vibrant Club”.
Stacie then addressed the membership and explained that the “program” for the day was going to be a “Club Assembly”. The “Club Assembly” is a meeting of all members that is typically held 4 to 6 times a year to discuss the overall operation of the club. For this first Club Assembly, it was an opportunity for Stacie to present her vision for the coming year and introduce some different formats. Notably, there will be a new structure to weekly programs. Stacie explained that programs would fluctuate with focuses on non-profit organizations, programs that educate for knowledge, programs that educate for skill, and programs that educate the membership on some aspect of a Rotary project.
Something new that Stacie introduced was the idea of once per quarter to hold a “Serve Instead” meeting. The idea behind this would be for the membership to participate in some type of service event in place of our normal luncheon meeting.
In order to promote engagement with the membership, we were all given the opportunity to respond to a “Let Us Hear From You” survey.
Stacie then transitioned to discuss the need for the club to have a better on-line presence and she encouraged everyone to go to the Rotary Club of Wichita Falls Facebook App and “like” the page. The app is a great method to highlight the work the club is doing in the community.
Stacie also indicated that each week she would like to have a Member Spotlighted and she asked for members who would be willing to serve on that committee. Lisa Stephen-Musick, John Mayfield, Treston Teague and Will Goodner volunteered to serve on this initiative.
To close the inaugural Club Assembly, Stacie presented a “Rotary Minute”. The Rotary Minute is a quick one-minute story that features the work and impact of Rotary in our community and world! For this week the Rotary-led initiative 'United to End Cervical Cancer in Egypt' was highlighted. This initiative aims to reduce cervical cancer cases and enhance women's health in Egypt through targeted awareness-raising and improved access to preventative care.
Because of the Club Assembly meeting this week there was no speaker’s book presented.
We then recited the Four-Way Test and President Stacie adjourned the meeting at 1p.m.