Hello Fellow Rotarians,
Greetings from the extremely hot valley of the sun. For those of you at higher elevations, I’m envious. If you read last month’s Governor message, you’ll recall there was discussion of the DG photo – something about my cape being in the wash. There is another photo this month, but you will need to read to the end of this missive to find out how this came about. August is Membership and New Club Development month. Our District has actually done a fine job recently in getting new clubs started. We are also getting satellite clubs started and some satellites are converting to Rotary clubs. Membership, however, continues to remain a problem. I recently had occasion to review the invoices that each club in the District is receiving this month from RI for semi-annual dues. RI is billing the various clubs in the District for a total of 2,253 members, but seven of those members were in a club that has closed down. So the number is actually 2,246. How many of you can truly say that you actually expected a number that low? I know I was surprised. We will need to increase our overall membership by almost 7 percent to get up to 2,400 members. I think that is an achievable and worthy goal. So you know that person you’ve been thinking about asking to join in Rotary? Why don’t you make the ask?
There are areas in our District that are ripe for a Rotary club. The San Tan Valley and East Mesa come to mind. Perhaps starting out with a satellite club in these areas with the goal of converting them to Rotary clubs is something worth looking at. New club development will help our membership numbers.
My first official task this year was visiting the Mesa West club for their first meeting of the year. Wow!! The club recognized 17 Paul Harris Society members and one major donor. Way to go Mesa West.
I also visited the Interact Leadership Retreat at Camp Pinerock. What an outstanding group of young leaders we have in out Interact program. Some of the Interact presentations were worthy of us pirating for our PETS program. In my time in Rotary in Arizona there has never been, as far as I can recall, an Interact or RYLA student visit my club. What a missed opportunity. If your club is involved with Interact and RYLA, and most clubs are, you should make an effort to get these kids to your club. I think you’ll be impressed.
NOMINATIONS FOR THE 2021-22 DISTRICT GOVERNOR ARE NOW BEING ACCEPTED. The interviews will be held on September 8. The nomination package is available for downloading on the District website.
Rotary International semi-annual dues statements have been posted in My Rotary. Make sure that your club retrieves its statement and please get your dues paid in a timely manner. I have enough to do without getting nastygrams from RI about late dues payments.
The last time I checked six (6) clubs had not entered their president in My Rotary. Many more clubs had other officer positions not reported. Please get this information entered. Your AG can help you on this. Along these same lines, get your goals entered into Rotary Club Central. Again, your AG can help.
WATCH FOR MY NEW YOU TUBE CHANNEL – DISTRICT 5495 GOVERNOR. It should be up and running by the time you read this. I will use the channel as another way to communicate with the clubs and their members. I hope to get important information conveyed in a timely fashion. And we might also have a little fun. Watch for my message, bi-weekly or possibly more often if conditions dictate.
Now, to the photo. You will recall that last month my cape was in the wash. Well, it got lost in the laundry. While I was out looking for the cape, I ran across the DeLorean, a DMC-12 model. The next thing you know, I was transported back to Easter Sunday 1981. How about the big hair? This photo saga is going to be an ongoing story line, so be sure to check back next month.