President's Message 6/13/2016

This week is Past Presidents’ week which is our chance to thank the past Presidents of our club who have done so much to make our club the organization that it is.  It is supposed to be a beautiful day and we will be out on the patio at Run of the Mill so please make every effort to be there.

    I also wanted to remind everyone that on Thursday, June 16 we, along with Run of the Mill, will host the Chamber Business after Hours at Run of the Mill.  Again, if the forecast is accurate we will be able to be outside.  The prior Businesses after Hours have been a lot of fun and great member recruiting events.  It runs from 5:00 to 7:00 PM so please try to attend.  

    I also wanted to remind everyone that June 22nd is our annual awards day.  It is the opportunity for the club to acknowledge the outstanding contributions that people have made to our communities while also giving me a chance to acknowledge some club members for their outstanding work for the club.  Again, please make every effort to be there if you can.

    Finally, I have never been a person who supports “teaching to a test”.  I am always offended by the stories about school districts that spend all year simply preparing students to take certain standardized tests as opposed to just teaching the subject and hoping that the students get enough out of the class to do well on whatever standardized test they are taking.  At the beginning of my Rotary year we received the RI President’s criteria for getting a Presidential citation and a District Governor’s Citation Challenge.  I looked at the list and really felt that if we got any such recognition it would be because we did the right thing during the year and not because we “taught to the test”.  

    Well, fast forward to this past weekend and Lucie and I attended the District Conference in Brighton for the day on Saturday which was held almost exclusively in a large tent.  To be honest, it was not real warm and it rained for a decent part of the afternoon.  There were speakers throughout the day who were pretty good, but we had to sit is these folding chairs supplied by some rental company (sorry Sue) which were the same chairs they make prisoners sit in at Gitmo so they will confess.  The day began at around 8:00 AM and at 8:30 PM the District Governor called up all of the current Presidents (the tent was more than half empty by then as many were suffering from hypothermia) and gave out some awards.  To my surprise we received the highest District Governor’s citation that she gave out and we received a Silver RI President’s Award and only 2 other clubs in the district got that high an honor (except Portland Rotary that got the Gold Award, but I am sure that they taught to the test).

    Those awards are really acknowledgements of all of your hard work and dedication to our club’s efforts and I thank you all for everything that you did for the club this year and for all that you have done in the past and will do in the future.  At the end of the day, certificates get placed in a file or a scrap book and are forgotten, but I can assure you that I will never forget all that each of you did during my year as President to continue to make our club one of the best clubs in the District.

    Have a great week.
 
Thanks Bill