As the year comes to an end, our thoughts turn graciously to all of you who made our success possible this year.
Thank you for all of your support and donations. May the next year be a prosperous, joyous and 'service above self' year for all.
LET'S KEEP IT GOING:
We are now at the halfway mark for our 2021-22 Rotary year. The first half of the year gives us great reason to celebrate:
return to in person meetings with a zoom option
Bubb's Catering joins our ranks with fabulous lunches and no cost increase
a super successful 2021 in person BluesFest
a $3,000 approved District Grant for 2021-22 - complete with a successful project with our friends at Hebron Housing Services
completion of our $45,000 donation for renovation and improvements to the existing Adventure Trail at Retzer Nature Center
a new club brochure to help us with our recruiting efforts
a new and improved student speaker program just starting to gain some ground
completion of 3 highway cleanups
adopt-a-family with the Christmas Clearing Council; additional $700 donation to the youth gift card program (all done by private donations); multiple hours donated by our members to the Toy Shop
Salvation Army Bell Ringing
Every Rotarian Every Year: $3,800 pledged by 29 members this year
These successes do not just happen. Each of them starts with an idea and a willingness to go beyond the minimum. Thank you to our members with "the ideas," and the committees that take the possibilities and make them reality. And thank you to each and every member that has volunteered to work at or contribute to any and all of the above. This is Service Above Self; this is The Waukesha Rotary Club.
OUR WORK IS NOT FINISHED:
We have many things to work on in the second half of 2021-22. These are at a minimum equally important and many are more important.
Membership: Our membership is currently at 47 (9 of these are 85-yr. enactment members; 10 are Corporate Members from 4 corporations plus 6 honorary) This is perhaps the most critical piece of business in the new year. Our best members come from you! This is definitely not an area that we can have a "let the other person do it" kind of attitude. Membership is every person's responsibility. With that being said, we are initiating a new "weekly assignment" beginning with our meeting on January 10th. It will be published in advance and will be added to the Pledge, Invocation, 4-Way Test assignments. We will call it Share Rotary. On the day that you are assigned to Share Rotary, we will ask you to simply bring someone to our Monday meeting with you. Lunch for your guest will be on us! It will cost you nothing but a phone call. This person may never join Rotary, but they will at least hear about Rotary and the good that we do in the community and the world. It will be 100 times better than what we are doing now. So when it is "your turn" please mark the date on your calendar so that you can be in attendance, pick up the phone or send an email to someone you'd like to share the gift of Rotary with. "Along we can do so little; together we can do so much."(Helen Keller)
Creative Fining: Normally held in December, we moved this to February 14th (yes, Valentines Day) to give this a fresh start. The committee has some creative ideas to jumpstart what will be a really fun meeting. Please mark your calendar now and plan on joining us. Better yet, plan on bringing your Valentine with you :)
Pancake Festival: Breakfast With The Easter Bunny will be our theme for 2022 and the date will be moved from February to April. Final details are being worked out, but I will keep all of you advised along the way.
100th Anniversary Celebration: March 31, 2022 at Tuscan Hall. We have run into quite a few bumps in the road with this event, but I believe we are back on track and on our way to a memorable event. Our biggest task right now is finding a quality speaker. Please, if you know of anyone or have any suggestions, let Colleen know.
Nominations for 2022-23: We have the key people in place, but are still looking to fill in a couple of open positions on both the club board and the charitable fund board. Please volunteer or make recommendations to Mike Kruse or Mary Baer as soon as possible.
District Grant 2022-23: Be creative. Any member from our club can make a recommendation for a district grant. Click Here for a list of past approved projects by the district. Contact Rick Kobriger at rrk@cmhlaw.com with all of your ideas.
The Waukesha Rotary Club is an amazing group of leaders! But you already know that. Let's share this gift with others. They will not come unless you invite them.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EACH OF YOU
"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."
