The Year in Review 2015-16

Posted by Ron Searfoss on Jul 25, 2016
 

The following is the promised report on our goals and achievements during the past Rotary year. Basically it follows the flow from RI goals through District to the club level. Detail information is available to all members by accessing RI Club Central.
 
Active Membership
We lost Rafael de la Hoz, Todd Heft and Mary Diggs in the first half, and Tom Mohr became an Honorary Member in January. As a direct result of the failure of our state government to meet its budgetary responsibilities in a timely fashion, we lost Iryna Levytska and Alex Shnaydruk as funding for Alex’s position was not renewed on time and they were forced to return to Ukraine.
 
On a positive note, we welcomed three wonderful Rotarians: Bernie Gardiner, John Oesmann, and Billy Weber into the club. John was a record setter in going all in even before officially a member. Bernie and Billy are both becoming fully engaged.
 
The ratio of Male vs Female remains at 59% Male and 41% Female. A plus is that Billy really helps the age demographic!
 
Rotarian Engagement of Members (participating in club service and social activities) encompassed nearly 100% of the membership. We had solid representation at District Conference, District Assembly and PETS. We have a growing number of members in district roles.
 
Club Communication
We exceeded goals in social activities outside of club meetings, number of communications distributed per month and expanded our online presence. We have initiated a Strategic Plan process and achieved buy in of the plan by the Board.  We have a Strategic Planning Committee with primary personnel being the immediate 3 past presidents and the incoming president and the future two presidents. First phase of defining the MSR Mission was created by the Board and presented to the club at Club Assembly as a draft with request for ideas and input!  The process is totally transparent in seeking membership participation and buy in by the full membership. As initiator of this project and immediate past president, I was asked to chair the process.  We view the Strategic Plan to be a living, breathing resource we are guided by, and will review and update annually and more often if needed.
 
Public Relations
We are consistently updating our website and social media accounts. To strengthen our mission to tell our story and grow the membership we joined the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce in a non-profit classification. Major objectives are new member recruitment (very active young professionals group); getting the word out there about Rotary who, what, where when and the why we are so great. Many, many opportunities for exposure – there are nearly 6,000 members across the LV! As Chair of the Communications group we will continue to increase our engagement with chamber members and the myriad of events which will allow us exposure, partnership opportunities and growth. This is seen as being of benefit to all Rotary clubs in the Lehigh Valley as we spread the word! A really great thing is access to the Chamber resources and communications and most often they can be done for free.
 
Now the fun stuff!
 
Operating Account
Income from Dues, 50/50, Happy Dollars, etc. totaled $15,847 or $1,188 below budget. RI Dues, RI Magazine and District Dues at $6,574 were within $100 of budget. Club and Committee Expenses totaled $6,730, or $5,195 favorable. $2,700 of the variance resulted from not having an Inbound Exchange student. Other significant favorable variances (>$500 each) resulted from New Member Dinners $500, no Rotary Road Signs $600, and lower Seminars and Training $541. Bottom line, Net Income was $2,406 compared to a budgeted Net Operating Loss of ($1,693) or $3,970 favorable.
 
Charitable Account
Our Fundraising events were quite successful this year.
Event: Primary Recipient, Available for Other Grants     
5K/10K: $8,000 Special Olympics, $6,032 for Other
Salute the Troops: $10,500 Victory House & Band, $6,841 for Other
Spaghetti Dinner: $1,378 for Other
Golf Tournament 2016*: $ 10,000 Bridges Foundation
   *Partner with Downtown RC (data to be finalized),
   net $2,500 to each club*
 
Other Grants, Net Expense
District Grant - Bethlehem Bike Works: $ 1,500                      
Community Dev. 5 @ $1,000 to $2,500 each:    $ 8,000
Dictionary Project: $ 2,520
International:
   Polio Plus    $ 1,500
   Rotaplast    $ 1,500
   Shelter Box  $ 1,000          
                       
A very successful year! Net Income of $1,237 for the year was achieved – $9,337 favorable compared with budgeted Net Expense of ($8,100). The Charitable Account carryover into 2016-17 is of $13,061.
 
Service Projects
  • Club Hunger Project – in February and March MSR began providing dinner one Thursday night per month for the Bethlehem Emergency Shelter in Bethlehem. We brought food per a menu, setup, prepared, served and cleaned up. Served 40 “guests” each time. Our Board has approved funding to complete this project on an on-going basis next December through March when the shelter is open.  Very needed and great hands-on with members. Wonderful fellowship!
  • Bike Works – collected 15 bikes and delivered to Bike Works (District Grant Equity portion).
  • Equi~Librium – Vocational project - preparation and painting of a horse corral
  • Dictionary Project – made presentations and distributed dictionaries to over 800 Third Grade Students
  • Camp Neidig – sponsored 4 students from local high schools at Rotary Youth Leadership camp
  • 4 Way Test Speech Contest – partnered with Downtown RC to conduct competition and send a candidate to the regional competition.
  • District Grant for Water Project in Nicaragua with Lehigh University Engineers Without Borders. Will be completed in August 2016, and our own Susan Burnett will be the Rotary representative.
 
The Rotary Foundation
For the second year in a row, we were able to achieve 100% Participation of Active Members contributing to the Rotary Foundation! As a club, we attained $8,756, and exceeded our 2015-16 Rotary Foundation Annual Fund contribution goal by $2,756. (The upcoming year will be challenging, with extra goals as The Rotary Foundation celebrates its 100th Anniversary.) We also exceeded our goal of $1,500 to Polio Plus from the club, aided by added leverage generated by participation in the Purple Pinkie Annual Run at LCC.
 
Two more club members achieved their Paul Harris Fellow awards. Six club members became Endowment Fund Benefactors as part of District 7430's Million Dollar Journey. ($2.5+ Million success!)
 
And More …
We had a wide diversity of Programs throughout the year, thanks to PE Fontana and the Program Committee. Further details on the 2015-16 programs are available on our website under downloads. Review of this information may stimulate ideas for new programs going forward.
 
Actions and planning were put in place to welcome our new incoming Exchange Student next month. The Bakers will graciously be the first host family.
 
There were many opportunities for celebrating fellowship and working ‘hands on’ with fellow Rotarians.
 
I am sure I missed something, but I just want to say ‘thank you’ for all your efforts in making my year of stewardship for our club a success. We have made significant progress and I know we will all look forward to giving President Sharon our fully engaged energy and support.
 
Thank you!
Past President Ron