Hey there!

 

Today, while I write this, I am in Ohio. Yesterday, when I arrived at the airport (which I thought was in Cincinnati, Ohio), I was actually in Kentucky. I was unaware of the geography in these parts, but found that little tidbit to be very interesting. The fact is, that in this part of Ohio, the Ohio River separates Ohio and Kentucky and the airport was built on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, hence the name, Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International Airport.

 

Currently, I am sitting in a middle school gymnasium listening to Carrie give a presentation to a group of 4^th, 5^th and 6^th grade students. What strikes me is how some schools really create environments that are conducive to well-behaved kids, actively listening to adults speaking – sometimes for almost an hour. A lot of them are very well behaved, but, some of them are not. When they don’t their teachers are often embarrassed by the bad behavior and try to correct it.

As adults, we can learn a lot from this. When speakers come to our clubs, we need to give them the same respect that we expect from our children as they watch speakers. When other club members give announcements, we need to be attentive and respectful.

Here’s what I’ve learned from these visits.

 

Obviously, these commonsense guidelines apply to people of all ages, most especially adults. Unbelievably I find that most of them are disregarded regularly at Rotary meetings. I have been meaning to address this issue since I began my presidency but have been derelict because I did not want to embarrass anyone at a meeting. So, now that my term as president is winding down, I promise that I will start calling people out for being rude at meetings so that future presidents do not have to deal with the same issue during their tenure. Or, hopefully, I will have to say nothing because we all decide to act like Rotarians are supposed to, upon the reminding of this message, and the issue just goes away on its own.

 

Shaun