From President Rose
Oh MY!! It’s here, the beginning of my year as President of our club. How does one follow Angus? This has been such a great year for me under his leadership. He is CALM, insightful, funny and a pleasure to spend time with. He is a patient listener and a voice of reason. He has helped me to STAY Calm and Serve On as I prepare anxiously for this next year. Thank you Angus but you’re not going far!! I’m excited about OUR year ahead.
I want to start my first Pinion with thoughts about my President Elect (PE) year. It has been a year of growing, learning and stretching. It began in January 2016 (when I was the President Elect Nominee – PEN) with weekly meetings of our Presidents Club. For those of you that do not know we have a group of 4 that meets weekly to ensure we are moving our club forward together. My Presidents Club included (for my first 6 month) Past President (Steve), President and then Past President (Lisa), and President (Angus), President Elect (Me J) and now Steve has stepped away and PEN (Brian) has joined us. This is a rotating committee as we change seats. Starting as a PEN, the first 60 days I really got a sense of what I had said yes to and I was nervous. Because of these meetings I was very prepared to get the most out of the President Elect Training (PETS) in March of 2017. Communication is always a challenge with larger clubs. When I got to PETS I realized what an impact the time and attention given me by our Presidents Club had made. The Presidents Club is a group most other clubs only dream of. It requires extra time of already busy people. The mentoring, time and patience gifted to me by Steven Landon, Lisa Lorenz, and Angus Cochran is so appreciated; I hope I can be of as much value to those coming next. Thank you so much for explaining things several times and being patient with my learning curve. You are all the best. And Brian we are just getting started – I truly look forward to the next three years with you!
The next big challenge was the PE’s responsibility for the Reverse Raffle. I know most of you think I do this every year! It’s not true; my job has been to support the PE’s vision for the event. Being the decision maker was a very different role for me. We had the best team ever and together with a lot of hard work, knocking on doors for donations, working with new venue staff, increased ticket prices, and the BEST ROTARIAN TICKET SELLERS EVER (IT TAKES A CLUB) – we sold out – had a great evening, and made lots of money to give away to our community. Thank you to all of you in my Rotary Family for your amazing continued support of the Reverse Raffle. PEN Brian already has a vision for our next Reverse Raffle and it will include some big changes that will be fun and full of Aloha!
LEADERSHIP—- I had to plan my first ever Leadership Retreat. 14 of us met for an all day Saturday training session lead by our club trainer Jack Rogers. It was a great day of understanding what makes Niles Rotary tick. Each leader in the room shared their ideas and vision for the next year. It was a very valuable day with a great lunch and yes we did have fun. Thank you all for your time, participation, enthusiasm and great ideas for our 2017-2018 year.
THEN there was Atlanta!!! I am going to be really honest – I did not want to go to the RI Convention in Atlanta! Yes, you heard right I really did not want to go. Of course our fearless leader told me I didn’t have to but he and several others really encouraged me to go and noted I would not be sorry! WELLLLLL they were right – Randy and I truly enjoyed ourselves, getting to know people in our club better, inspired by amazing speakers (UN Ambassador Andrew Young and Jack Nicklaus to name two) and amazed at the magnitude of Rotary International. There were only about 45,000 people there. We met people from ALLL over the world and I must admit I had to look up some countries once back in our room. It was A PETS on steroids— Imagine 45,000 people all with a Service Above Self attitude – wanting to serve humanity and excited about Making a Difference in the year ahead. It is a trip that will not be forgotten. I plan on writing a little more about our trip later.
This next year I want to focus on our membership. TOTAL membership! Increasing yes!!! But Rotary is what we do with our private, quality, and sometimes even family time. Everyone chooses to be involved with what gives them joy, satisfaction or as Kimberly said what “Fosters our Passion.” That’s why we attend meetings, volunteer for projects, and choose to play together. The song is right – “We are a friendly happy band and the GREATEST in the Land” – this is what makes our club so strong, rewarding, and fun to be a part of. With this positive bond we do make a difference in our community and the world. I want to keep that going with great projects, upbeat meetings, different socials, increased membership, while valuing every member of our club.
By the reading of this Pinion you will already know the International Theme for the year is “Rotary: Making a Difference,” and my theme this year is … [it will be revealed at my first meeting – there are a few clues in my article]. I think our club can meet all of our membership goals, gifting goals, project goals, and fun goals as a club family! I look forward to the year ahead and details about our goals will be presented at our club assembly. I hope you all enjoy CRAZY GEORGE on July 6! I have no idea what to expect but at least I hope we get to do the WAVE!
SO READY OR NOT LET THE YEAR BEGIN!!!
Fondly,
President Rose
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