We held the Annual Council of Presidents (CoP) at the Oronoque Country Club in Stratford CT this past Thursday in front of  a crowd of about 65 people. The Council of Presidents program is designed for Rotary Club Presidents to interact with District Leaders and other Club Presidents on issues which may affect their clubs and to get exposed to creative ideas that are being deployed in other Rotary Clubs.

The CoP event, which has historically been run as an all day Saturday event, was held for 3 hours on a weeknight last week. Our continuing shift away Saturday events was well received by sitting President’s and Assistant Governors.

We covered the following topics:

• Revamping the Club Awards
• Upcoming Club Foundation Program (‘All Boots on the Ground‘)
• Leadership Succession Readiness & Preparing for PETS by DGE Mukund Nori
• Membership Retention by Brad Howard
• Public Image – Is the Public Facing image that your club is putting out matching the desire to attract younger members?
• Fundraising – creative and successful events being held by Clubs around our District

We were incredibly fortunate to have Brad Howard come in from California to address our crowd on the importance of Membership Retention through Engagement. It was also a special treat to have Rev. Mark Kiyimba, Unitarian Universalist minister from Kampala, Uganda join us as a visiting Rotarian.

With 3 months under our Leadership belts we will still have a lot to do in our Clubs and the District over the next 9 months so that we can hand them off to our successors in better condition than when we arrived.

Photos: Thank you to Laima Nori for contributing many of the photos above.