I hope all of you enjoy the coming holidays with friends and family! The holiday season is a great chance to recharge our energy and spirits with the love of our friends and family. Then we meet the new year with our batteries fully charged. All I want for Christmas is a bigger family of Rotary!
It is imperative that we put in place the lessons learned at the Club Experience Summit to grow our great organization. If we want to see our vision - a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change across the globe, in our communities and in ourselves - we need to grow Rotary! The Club Experience Summit was a wonderful sharing of very successful best practices of clubs and members in our district. Now is the time to build and implement a membership growth plan based on the ideas generated from the summit to grow your club and the Family of Rotary. Every club is unique; the Summit provided a range of proven growth practices. Pick those that best suit your club and community. Grow Rotary!
It is hard to believe that we are approaching the halfway point in the Rotary year. As you begin planning 2025, save the following dates. On February 8, February 19, and March 8 we will have our Grant Management Seminars. If your club wants to take part in a matching district grant (up to $2500!) or a global grant in the 25-26 Rotary year, at least two people from your club must attend one of these sessions. The project manager for your potential project must be one of these attendees, and it is expected that your 25-26 and 26-27 club presidents attend a session. Our District 4 Way Test Speech Contest will be on April 12 so please plan your club's 4 Way Test Speech Contest accordingly. I look forward to hearing these speeches each year, and I recommend coming to hear the best of the best! The quality of these is great, and the students very often challenge our own thoughts. Often these "challenging" speeches have the most emotional impact. Lastly - mark April 25 and 26 on your calendars for our District Conference of Clubs and the District Learning Assembly. We are working on some great speakers and will have a social with heavy appetizers on Friday instead of a dinner so that we can enjoy the Family of Rotary without a formal program. Traditional highlights that will not change are the Celebration of Life on Friday morning and our Celebration of Youth at our Saturday Lunch. We are also working on District Learning Assembly sessions in the spirit of the October Summit. This District Conference of Clubs is for all Rotarians, not just club and district leaders. All who attend will come away excited about Rotary. Join us there!
Dale Smith
District Governor 2024/2025
Rotary International District 6630
Past-President
Rotary Club of Mentor
The Magic of Rotary
District Governor 2024/2025
Rotary International District 6630
Past-President
Rotary Club of Mentor
The Magic of Rotary
330-968-7683 (m)