District
Governor Steve Lewis, 2010-2011 - Governor's Message
 What
will your Rotary Club look like on June 30th 2011?
Personally, I believe your club will be Bigger, Better and
Bolder than it is today! I'm confident that our upcoming year of
service together will be the best that you and your club have
ever seen as we combine our efforts in the spirit of Service
Above Self.
For more than 25 years, past RI President Cliff Dochterman has
suggested to many of our past and present club presidents that,
". . . your club must insist on better weekly meetings.
Meetings must be fun and enjoyable if you want your members to
be there every week. Good programs are the best insurance for
retaining high club membership, maintaining regular attendance
and eliminating the 'early' leaver problem." As we all
know, our weekly meetings are the only part of Rotary most
members ever see.
I've asked each club president to begin implementing a plan to
improve the quality of their weekly meetings and to begin
recruiting for new and interesting programs to capture the
attention of not only your current membership but prospective
new members. Your weekly club meetings will once again come
alive, become fun, interesting, relevant to your community and
worthy of your members investment of time.
On June 30th 2011, you'll have discovered that your club's
weekly meeting attendance will have increased to 80%, or higher
and your club will have gained a net of two new members and
achieved close to an 80% retention rate.
Additionally, your club will have met or exceeded the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation Polio Plus challenge of raising $2,000
or more this year as a result of your club's continued community
awareness campaign to End Polio Now. Today, we enter the final
inch of fulfilling our international promise to eliminate the
devastating and crippling disease of polio from the face of the
earth. We're almost there. During the publication of this
message, there have been less than 40 cases of polio reported
worldwide!
On June 30th 2011, you'll be amazed that your club recorded its
highest level of contributions to OUR Rotary Foundation than
ever before. Due in large part to the success of some of those
new weekly 'Foundation' specific programs your club presented,
they really promoted better awareness as to some of the
educational and humanitarian projects their Rotary Foundation
supports. Humanitarian projects such as bringing sight to those
blinded by cataracts, supplying wheelchairs for those who cannot
use their legs, providing clean water to those previously made
sick from contaminated water, or helping families who've lost
everything in a disaster. Educational projects might include
sponsoring an Ambassadorial Scholarship or Group Study Exchange
to better prepare a future community leader or opening up new
worlds by simply helping people learn to read.
Your club will have taken the lead in your community as the
first service organization to sponsor and promote one of our
district's new ethics initiative programs to better educate
young people as to the importance and lasting value of living
Rotary's 'Four Way Test'. Who better than a Rotarian to mentor
our youth as to the benefits of living a life rich in personal
integrity, mutual trust and respect?
Looking back at your club's year of service, you'll realize how
many club members will forever be remembered in the life of a
young Rotary Youth Exchange student hosted by your club and how
you too will be touched by the joy and excitement from that
student's experience of living in your own community. Maybe
it'll be that 'life changing experience' a young RYLA student
shares with your club after returning from a week long
leadership camp. Or simply remembering the smiles on those young
elementary school children's faces the day you took time to read
a book to them.
Members of your club will look back at a successful year of new
and much needed service projects undertaken in your local
community as well as maybe that first international project.
Your club will have taken advantage of a matching District
Simplified Grant or even a Rotary Foundation matching grant to
create a more sustainable, significant and highly visible
project for which your members and your community can take much
pride in. Your club's Public Relations chair will have taken
full advantage of your club's successes in your local media
which assisted your club in recruiting a few new members.
So now you have a glimpse into the future of what your clubs
can look like on June 30th 2011. You have the vision, tools,
desire and energy to make it happen. Put your signature on your
Rotary Club becoming Bigger, Better and Bolder in 2010-2011.
Evaluate your club's traditions, what works, what doesn't? If
there's a better way to run your club and achieve its service
goals and objectives, then I say, go for it! Maybe it's time
your club begins to establish some new traditions.
And finally, let us not forget that you and I have a
responsibility to maintain Rotary International as the world's
premier service organization and move it to an even higher
level. As Rotary International President Ray Klinginsmith has so
eloquently declared; "For us to succeed this year, all we
need to do is to focus our best efforts on encouraging our clubs
and the district to do what Rotarians are passionate about, and
what Rotarians are the best in the world at doing, which is
Building Communities - Bridging Continents."
Steve Lewis
District Governor, 2010-2011
Rotary District 5190 |
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