District Governor Bill Gormont Visits Pal-Mac

Posted on Sep 30, 2015

At our club assembly this month, we were honored to welcome our district governor Bill Gormont for his official club visit. Bill had many things to share with us about Rotary in our district and the world.

Bill started off by inviting us all to “come on down to chocolate town – the sweetest place on Earth.” Of course this was really an invitation to join the fun at this year’s district conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania April 29 through May 1. This year’s theme is “Celebrate Rotary Service.”

Bill took us back in time to 2 years ago, when Ron Burton became RI president. Ron taught all of us Rotarians throughout the year to engage Rotary. We all worked t do just that all over the world, and we found that we were changing lives. Last year, Gary Huang saw that we were changing lives all over the world, but in many parts of the world, Rotary is the best-kept secret. He said that we needed to let people know what we’re doing and we need to do it over and over again. We needed to “Light Up Rotary.” This year, our RI president Ravi Ravindran looked at what we were doing and said “We’re changing lives. We’re engaging Rotary – more people know about Rotary than ever before.” But every time you give something, that’s a gift. And that’s our theme this year: “Be a gift to the world.”

When we joined Rotary, it changed us in many ways. We stopped looking at things as what is and started looking at them as what could be. We realized that some of the obstacles in the way of completing our service projects were really opportunities to be taken advantage of. In 1985 when Rotary took on the eradication of Polio as one of its goals, there were 125 countries where Polio was endemic. Rotarians around the world supported this effort and today there are only 2 Polio-endemic countries. That shows the resolve that Rotarians have. Through every donation to the Rotary Foundation, through every fundraiser for Polio Plus, we’ve all had a hand in that amazing result.

District Governor Bill Gormont and his wife Helen (middle) with club President Mark Clement, and PE Kim Clement.

After attending the Rotary International Training Assembly last winter, Bill came back to our district energized and ready to lead some changes to better give the incoming club presidents the tools they would need to lead their clubs. Changes to President-Elect Training, fireside chats, and training seminars were put into place. As an example, the district recently hosted the One Rotary Summit. Traditionally at this time of year the district would have held a membership seminar. This year, the One Rotary Summit touched on three areas: membership, public image, and the Rotary Foundation. These three areas were covered at the same time, because they all interact with each other. In prior years, each of these would have been the subject of its own seminar, but by integrating them together, it showed how they interconnect.

Bill talked about some of the district’s goal for the year, including membership (recruitment and retention) and strategic planning. He mentioned the importance of public image. Tom Brown is the district chair for public image and has created the website RotaryWebinars.com. At that website, Rotarians can sign up for webinars about social media and event marketing, among others, and how to use social media to those ends. Previous webinars are also available there in their archives.

Bill talked about how impressed he is with our club’s activities. Our fundraisers – the Hill Cumorah Pageant, Wayne County Fair, Canaltown Days and parking for the PPL Barn Sale – are done for the year, and brought in more money than was expected. The funds we raised go to Camp Onseyawa, Dictionary/Thesaurus project, the local daycares and food pantries, Meals-on-Wheels, Dollars for Scholars, Youth Baseball, and the Good Neighbor Fund. We also sponsor contestants for the district oratorical and vocal competitions, support an Interact Club, send students to RYLA and the district spelling bee, and we are hosting an exchange student. He said these things show that our club is made up of people who are gifts to the world.

Bill’s talk was well received by everyone present. It’s easy to see why Bill is a successful motivational speaker. Thanks, Bill, for sharing your talents and time with us today!