The website to sign up for the District Training Assembly and Conference is now up and ready for you to sign up. We promise that this will be an exciting weekend of fun, fellowship, amazing speakers and stories of Doing Good in the World. We can IMAGINE Rotary together.
We are pleased to have Hendreen Dean Rohrs, Trustee 2020-23 of The Rotary Foundation as a keynote speaker at the year’s District Conference. Dean will also be speaking at RYLA. Dean is a member of the Rotary Club of Langley Central, British Columbia, Canada. She has been a Rotarian since 1989 and has served RI as vice president, director, Rotary coordinator, regional Rotary Foundation coordinator, and district governor. She is a Rotary Foundation Benefactor, Major Donor, and Bequest Society member.
Have you ever felt that you would like more opportunities for networking in Rotary? Rotary was originally started by Paul Harris in 1905 to support networking but we have tended to downplay it at the club level. Through an initiative by some great Rotarians in our district who were looking for networking opportunities in 2016, they started Rotary Means Business (RMB). The sole purpose of this group is to foster networking. In fact, coming without a stack of business cards to one of their events could be a reason to deny you admission—just saying. After a hiatus due to Covid, RMB is back. Through the leadership of Will Barnes from the Rotary Club of St. Augustine, we have our next event on April 19th at the Classic Car Museum in St. Augustine. We would like to have events planned throughout the district. This was a vibrant part of our district prior to Covid. Please join Will, signup to attend and volunteer to make this group even bigger and better than before.
On Friday February 17, 2023, the Rotary Club of Crescent City celebrated their 96th Birthday! Funny, but they don’t look a day over 50!
This will be a very important week for the district, as District Governor-Elect John Tabor leads next year’s Rotary and Rotaract presidents to PETS. He hopes that each of these leaders will be back in your club next week with “uncontrolled” excitement for the 2023/24 Rotary year.
If you have heard about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio and want to help, my colleague, District Governor Michelle Charles from District 6650 has created a donation portal on their district website to accept donations.
Pictures of the Week
Mike Selah and I attended the Rotaract Club of the University of North Florida. Mike, sorry we remembered the picture after you left.
On Saturday, Maureen and I had a chance to attend the Black Tie and Blue Jeans Gala at the Rotary Club of Downtown Deland. Boy do these Rotarians know how to throw a party! Maureen and I love to visit Deland because it is so wonderful to see so many Rotarians make these events work. There were workers and supporters from all four clubs, but I have to tell you the Rotary “hustle award” goes to the Rotaract Club of Deland!
Thank you, Rotary Club of Downtown Deland president Aaron Preston and president-elect Doug Wedekind, for inviting us to such a wonderful event. Doug the president seems to still get all of the glory, but this will be you in four short months.
Bill Feyk, Matt Birnie and Kendrick Thomas all but accosted your District Governor to make sure they got into this week’s Minutarian. I visited the club in August and heard Matt read the Minutarian and he has continued to do this with “feeling” I am told, and I am told he might even try to imitate your District Governor on occasion. To that I want to personally thank Matt for carrying our news to his Rockstar club. I take imitation as a form of flattery!
Assistant Governor Steve Crump and District Secretary Karen Weiss are always at the tip of the spear for anything Rotary in West Volusia County.