Rotary International – District 7980
Polio Fundraising Tip by: Amy Luckiewicz – District 7930
Polio fundraising tip: Make fun props to explain how far a donation goes! By recycling 12 cans, you can save 3 lives from polio ($0.05 redemption x 12=$0.60. One vaccine costs $0.60, plus $1.20 in Gates Match = 3 vaccines!)
Creativity by: Amy Luckiewicz of the Wakefield MA Rotary Club.
About 160 attendees turned out at The Woodwinds Banquet facility in Branford on Sunday Nov 2nd for a very nice Rotary Foundation recognition event. Clubs and Individuals were recognized for their outstanding support of the Rotary Foundation over the past year (2013-14) as they enjoyed an entertaining program, a great meal as well as fabulous fellowship.
Sheryl Shaughnessey (Fairfield), Rick Benson (Westport) and Doug Lisk (New Haven) made up the organizing committee and everyone’s favorite PDG Brain Amey (Newtown) was the Master of Ceremonies.
THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to the success of this event including: Doug Lisk (New Haven), Trish Pearson (Orange), Lynda Hammond (Orange), Brian Amey (Newtown), Rick Benson (Westport), Jim Lang (Trumbull), Jennifer Jones (Speaker), Dale Moore (Madison), Steve Cooper (Milford), Mark Mathias (Westport Sunrise), Paul Indorf (Chester), Mark Horton (Trumbull) and Sheryl Shaughnessey (Fairfield). Hopefully no one was left out.
What better way for 150 Rotarians and friends to spend a rainy/windy Sunday afternoon than by gathering at a fabulous banquet facility and recognizing the many people and clubs who generously support The Rotary Foundation?
At long last the District 7980 Foundation Brunch is finally upon us. The festivities start in just a few short hours!!!
The event’s primary focus is to recognize clubs and individuals who have helped to advance the service work of Rotary International by contributing to the Rotary Foundation during the past year.
Keynote Speaker(s): Jennifer Jones, RI Director Nominee – Zones 28/28
Location: Woodwinds – Branford CT 12 p.m. – 3 P.m.
Dinner Foundation Brunch Chair Sheryl A. Shaughnessey has been working diligently on this event with PDG Rick Benson and District Secretary Doug K. Lisk for months. PDG Brian Amey will be the MC today.
We will post many event photos tomorrow.
Rotary District 7980 Council of Presidents (CoP) was held at the Graduate Club in New Haven on Saturday Oct 18th by District Governor Mukund Nori and event Chair Ann Brignola.
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.
Agenda for the event covered the following topics:
and a moving keynote talk by North Branford Rotarian Ed Pikaart on his experience in Kenya with the Peace Corps.
Other speakers included: Mukund Nori, Phoebe Leask, Lynda Hammond, Chip Marsh, Kim Navetta, Tony Riggio and yours truly. While Rick Benson wasn’t in physical attendance, enough identity confusion still exists that many attendees thought he was there.
It was a good event with attendance a little on the light side as it is always a challenge getting people to attend to attend Saturday events when the weather is nice.
Rotary International is the ultimate example of how tight term limits can and do work. The vast majority of Rotary leaders, which are unpaid volunteers from all over the world, serve just 1 year at the helm and then hand over the leadership reigns to their successor.
Every July 1st all of the top leadership at all significant levels (Clubs, Districts and International) changes over; everyone of the 34,000 Rotary Clubs gets a new President, everyone of the 535 +/- Districts gets a new District Governor and Rotary International gets a New President.
This 1-and-done approach keeps our organization fresh with new ideas, new focus and new energy while preventing anything that resembles the entrenched interests that career politicians often bring to the table in most political systems. Future leaders are nominated by their peers. There are no elections, no campaigning, no fundraising of donors, no quid pro quo just good Rotarians trying to make their communities and the world a better place for everyone.
Behind this great leadership shift each year are well orchestrated training and development efforts designed to prepare incoming leaders for their 1 year leadership role.
Incoming District Governors begin their training journey several years prior to taking office. Their training journey has them attending Zone Institute twice; once while they are a District Governor Nominee (2 years out) and a District Governor Elect (1 year out) and then attending the International Assembly as well as the International Convention.
The Governor Elect Training Seminar (GETS) is being held in Toronto this week where District Governor Elect (DGE) Geraldine “Gerry” Tom is attending GETS training and District Governor Nominee (DGN) Christopher “Chris” Johnson is attending Nominee training.
DGE Gerry Tom
DGN Chris Johnson
Incoming Presidents (Presidents-Elect) typically start their formal training in January by attending various leadership events, followed by PETS, District Assembly, District Conference and then their Installation/Induction.
This year our district has funded 4 Rotarians from our district to attend The Future District Leaders seminar in Toronto.
Best of luck to all of the Future Leaders attending training at Zone Institute this week in Toronto.
Dr. Atul Gawande on the Daily Show last night discussing his newest book ‘Being Mortal‘ where he discusses the quality of life options for terminally ill patients that focus on having honest conversations at end of life with family and friends rather than exhausting all medical treatment possibilities and how stopping treatment early can sometimes extend life longer than medical treatments and often lead to great fulfillment.
About 2 minutes into this segment Dr. Gawande discusses the conversations that he had with his terminally ill father who’s commitment continuing to do good work for the Rotary Foundation was critically important to him in the last few months of life.
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