My, how the summer flies by! It's been almost two months since our Rotary year changed over, and there are a lot of exciting things happening in our club. Many folks ask me what kind of time I spend as Club President on Rotary each week, and my response is always that "It's hard to tell..." I say that because the lines of spending time "working on Rotary" and what I would refer to as "working with friends" is virtually indistinguishable. I continue to meet with dedicated Rotarians working to shape programs, initiatives, etc, almost daily. Many hours have been spent at Caribou Coffee (in the mornings) and Brazenhead (in the later afternoons)... and I try my best to make sure I don't mix up those times and locations. :)
I'd like to take a moment to point out some of the big picture activities going on as we speak, and to recognize a few folks for the time and energy that they are devoting to our Club...
Our Membership Chair Rich Brown, along with President Elect Claudia Trusty, continue to shape our recruiting efforts and guest policies to encourage membership growth of our club. We have made great strides and continue to have a full pipeline of guests stopping by for meetings and to help with service projects, and our board meetings have been chock full of proposed new members to discuss and approve. Rich and Kent Underwood, our New Member Chair, have also been reviewing and revising our New Member Checklist and procedures to make the New Member experience the best that it can be, and to engage newer members right away in our Clubs' many activities.
Vice President Dave Holliday, President Elect Claudia Trusty and myself meet every other week, to discuss ongoing initiatives and longer term planning and thinking for our club. Particularly, we have been focused on our fundraising efforts and looking to shape a forward course for the Club. We are hoping to roll out some details (soon) as to what we plan to do in the short term for this Rotary year and what path we aim to take for the longer term over the next few years. Many members have been assisting and advising us in this process and we thank all of those folks for their dedication to help move us all forward.
Bonnie Coley-Malir has been quite the busy Rotarian, wearing several hats at once...As Club Services Chair, she and Michael Blackwell along with the Speakers Committee have worked very hard in building a solid slate of speakers to start our Rotary year off right. This week's visit from The Ohio State University President Gordon Gee will allow us an opportunity to have an "open house" of sorts with many guests and visitors. Also related to Club Services, Amy Snow and the Fellowship Committee continue to put together some great opportunities for Fellowship, both for members as well as those friends outside of the club who have come by to have some fun with us.
Our Flickr account (on our website homepage) is stocked full of terrific photos from all of our meetings, service projects and fellowship events thanks to Bonnie, Roberta Kayne and the rest of our resident paparazzi as they capture the memories we are creating through our service and fellowship together.
Past President Jim Burness, International Services Chair Scott Williamson, Randall Wood from the Dublin Baptist Church and heckuvagoodguy Gene Belew have been helping to take our LN-4 prosthetic hands initiative to heights that I'm not sure they could have imagined. Since Jim and Sue came back from England last summer and first learned of the LN-4 project, our Club's collective relationships and contacts have brought us to the point where we have successfully fit some prosthetic hands on some residents of Haiti, the first of which came on the last day of Jim Burness' presidency. Amazing! There are some "irons in the fire" to bridge this project to several other countries that these gentlemen are working to make happen. This particular project speaks directly to this year's Rotary theme of Building Communities, Bridging Continents. We all are so proud of the success that this program has enjoyed, and the results that it has yielded for many people in need.
As school comes back into session, many other projects will restart: three Interact clubs, our Robotics teams, several Literacy projects, Youth Exchange, planning for our Montana de Luz trip, Mentoring, Challenge Day, and many others. We look forward to sharing success stories about those programs as we move along in the calendar.
As for you? Consider the time and talents that you have, and fit those with one of our projects that you are passionate about, or perhaps have an emerging interest in. Our project and committee leaders will welcome the help!
As for me? Go back and reread the first paragraph...I'm simply having coffee and Guinness (frequently) with great friends that I look forward to being around each day, who are working very hard in the Service Above Self department. Thank you all again for the opportunity to serve and grow with you- it has and will continue to be my pleasure.