Dear Rotarians:

 

Welcome to our 7th Fireside Chat, and β€” πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰ Happy New Year! πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰πŸŽ‰

 

I hope all of you had a wonderful New Year Celebration of your choosing with family and friends to do justice to the potential this new year provides for all of us, particularly in the realm of doing more good in the world.

What a whirlwind the first half of the 2016-2017 year was with all the club visits, events, training and meetings. The Emerging Leader Summit was fantastic. The Big West Rotaract Conference! The Connecting For Good Tour - Wow!  It has been demanding in time and energy, but I would not trade it for anything in the world as I was able to do all of it with you, my family of Rotary .
 
Asking you to Dream Big and Imagine, Engage & Serve to do good in the world has served us well for the first half of the year and I expect it will serve us well right up to June 30 when we turn the reigns over to Nancy and 5495. Keep dreaming of what can be β€” then make it so.
 
Membership is growing and extension of new regular and satellite clubs will add to that growth. We have 4 new clubs now and more in the works. Having said that, we still need our current clubs to work to engage all of their current members to have them find their area of service(s) that allow them to excel as Rotarians. An engaged Rotarian is a Rotarian for life.
 
Under the direction of Mary K Clark, we have a wonderful District Conference shaping up for next May 18-21 and it will be a proper send off for D5490 and proper welcome to D5495. It is being held in Laughlin, NV and our Rotary Club there are fantastic hosts. We will celebrate Rotary and the Rotary Foundation. We will celebrate D5490 and welcome D5495. Put it on your calendar as a must do and watch for the promo’s coming out very soon.
 
We still have lots more to do this Rotary year and I am confident that we have the wonderful, dedicated Rotarians in our district who will make it all work. Thanks again for all you do and will do.
 
On a more personal side, my Rotary Club did not have a speaker for its final meeting of the year and decided each member would put a slip of paper in a hat telling something about themselves that the club members would not necessarily know about us. The slips were drawn from the hat and read with folks trying to guess who wrote it. I had been away for so many meetings, I thought I would have some fun with my club mates.
 
When my slip was pulled from the hat and read it said: β€œI have a new love in my life.” There were guesses all around, but none were directed at me. When I stood and confessed, you could have heard a pin drop as all in the room know my wife of 45 years and looked at me in disbelief. My head was bowed for effect. Slowing looking up, I grinned and said his name is Baxter and is a our wonderful new 8 month old puppy we had gotten on November 14th.
 
 

May you all have a wonderful start to your New Year and I look forward to seeing many of you throughout the rest of this Rotary year.