District Governor Hans Doge

This week we had our official visit from our Governor.  Hans is a founding member of the Quadra Club and he gave us an update on our district 5040.  The Rotary theme for the year is Reach Within to Embrace Humanity and our Rotary International President wants us to concentrate on family, continuity and change.  Rotarians can go anywhere in the world and find friends.  We have been doing some of the same things for far too long.  Keep doing the things that you do well. But we also need a strong focus on change.  Hans is asking for a 20% increase in membership from each club and he stressed that the problem is not in getting new members but in retention of members.  One of the things we may want to try this year is Associate Members - where they can "test drive" Rotary for 3 or 6 months or whatever time we decide.  The District Conference this year will be at the River Rock in Richmond May 17th - 20th, 2012 - easy access by Skytrain and a very good rate if you want to stay over.  The Rotary International Conference will be in Bangkok May 6th to 9th, 2012 and this will be a very reasonable price.  District 5040 this year has $60,000 available for community grants and $60,000 for international grants.  Our district has the highest per capita donation amount in our Zone for the Rotary Foundation and it is very important that we maintain this.