President Mac announced that a New Member Orientation meeting was going to be held after the regular club meeting.
Our speaker today was the esteemed District Governor Jon Catlin from Cadillac. DG Jon’s first exposure to Rotary was as an exchange student to Finland in 1985! He became a paying member of Rotary in 1994 and has been active as a Rotary exchange host family and has attended two international conventions.
His presentation entitled “A Year for Making Lemonade” communicated the goals of Rotary during this lemonade making season!
Rotary Goals include:
Making Membership Memorable!
We have challenges with: less connection, less time, information overload and maintaining the status quo.
What is needed is: involved and engaged Rotarians, focus on caused based activities (like a Blood Drive and 9/11 Honor Run!)
Satellite clubs are forming as: e-clubs, passport clubs,
Innovation: the time is now to be innovative with how we do Rotary
Telling your Rotary Story?
Does the community know what we do? (We like to think they do, I mean we are kind of a big deal!)
How do we communicate that? Social media, website?? A champion is needed.
Successful clubs are:
Diverse
Accepting
Innovative
Active
Rotary Foundation has donated millions recently for food, ventilators, PPE and masks over the last several months.
While the goal of Every Rotarian Every Year continues to be a theme for Rotary International, there is a new 7th area of focus: Supporting the Environment. The Four-Way Test has now added a 5th component: Is it Fun? (Seriously, I think we wrote the book on “Is it Fun”!!)
Other challenges with Rotary during the current state of making lemonade affect our young people. Rotary Youth Exchange and the Rotary Life Leadership weekend are halted at this time. Interact and Rotaract programs present new challenges with engagement due to the uncertainty of what our educational process will evolve into.
Despite the lemonade we are currently making, District Governor Jon is challenging us to:
Visit another club
Attend a district event
Find ways to showcase our club
Mark April 16-18 on your calendar for a district event at Crystal Mountain.
And with that, the meeting for the first week of August is a wrap!
