Meeting number 2 down and a few more to go. I thought today’s meeting went pretty well. We even had Turkey on the menu. Every past president I have talked to has said they had such a good time as president of the club. I was always a little hesitant to let anybody offer up my name for the position. I can say after a few weeks in I am glad they did. Ask me in a few months how I feel, I think it will still be fun. I have always enjoyed building things and was never satisfied with the status quo; I hate maintenance of an organization, a necessary evil to a certain extent. Part of our mission statement at my company deals with our commitment to continuous improvement in our process and people. We actually measure those metrics.
I hope we can share the same passion and commitment to continuously improve our club as past presidents and members have. We are off to a great start- thank you! I am looking forward to sharing with all of you how many actual service hours we provide over the year- a real measure of success; not how many meetings you were at. If we have 75 members and each member gives 16 hours a year in service work, that is 1200 hours. We can do a lot in 1200 hours! Think “Earl the Pearl Goodwin” selling over 70 raffle tickets- how many hours did that take him? Jim Godbout’s beach extravaganza on the 28th, how many hours is he and all of the other volunteers putting in? I want to know, so doesn’t Julie our secretary. I want to be able to show people what we really do. So let’s figure out a way to record those hours. The base line metric is 1200 hours- the challenge is now!
I had a member email me today apologizing for not having been to the last few meetings and with the intention of missing a few more; work and family sometimes can get in the way of Rotary. I told her the same message I have been telling you- let’s focus on service and not attendance. What she doesn’t realize is that I am going to ask her to put together our first in service meeting project for 09/19.
The project will be to make birthday parties in a bag for the shelters and food pantries. After listening today to Elaine Fournier from Open Hearts / Open Hands, she even mentioned that she gives new items as birthday gifts to children. One thing Elaine did not mention is that the building she is housed in also houses the Saco Food Pantry. Elaine’s organization is an addition that was added to the food pantry. It was built by Rotarians like Carl Goodwin and others.
In closing, if any of you have some kids clothes you want to finally get rid of than bring them to the meeting and I will make sure that the items get to Elaine. If you have a “crappy” bike bring that too. We can throw it in the back of my truck and deliver it to Bronwyn.
See you all at the meeting!
Regards,
Joe
