District 5495 Area 4 Clubs Celebrate Leadership
By AG Bob Murray - RC of Sun City West
 
The Area 4 Rotary Clubs, Sun City, Sun City Del Sol, Sun City West, Surprise and Wickenburg have been blazing new trails for the last Rotary Year in many ways.
 
The five club Presidents, Presidents-elect, Presidents-nominee and Assistant Governor meet monthly.  We rotate the meeting place using the presidents homes or restaurants.  We always meet on the same day and the same time that way it becomes a "standing meeting" monthly.
 
The meetings are used to discuss current Rotary business, club projects, district projects,  international projects, and club situations which can benefit from a "round table" discussion.
 
The meetings are used to discuss current Rotary business, club projects, district projects,  international projects, and club situations which can benefit from a "round table" discussion.
 
We support each other club projects in several ways i.e. attending, selling tickets and promoting the various club projects.  Also we discuss how we as a group can support district and international projects.  The group encourages visiting the other clubs at least once a quarter and sometimes more often.
 
The group injects some fun every now and then.  Led by then RC of Surprise President, Amanda Sanchez, the group "crashed" another Rotary meeting.  The president knew so the catering staff could be ready for us but the members were shocked when they arrived to see their ample meeting space was practically taken up by visiting Rotarians.
 
The group had members in Veracruz and Caborca.  Veracruz was the location of the USA Mexico Friendship Conference and the group arrived with a little over $3,000 to support various projects.  Caborca is an annual Polio Plus trip on the sea of Cortez and the group arrived with a little over $1,000 to support the Polio and Children's projects in Caborca.  In both trips, Rotarians paid their own way.
 
As the Rotary Year started approaching the end of the Rotary Year, the Area 5 Presidents wanted to do something different to commemorate their year as Rotary Leaders.  After much discussion they decided on dinner celebration at the Sun City Country Club.  The evening was called "Leadership Celebration ... A Celebration of things Accomplished and A Glimpse of Things to Come.
 
In attendance were PDG Danny Messersmith, DG Nancy Van Pelt and Community Leaders Mike Whiting, Jodi Taas and Carole Studdard.  PDG Danny handed out certificates to the 2016-17 Presidents Dean Pokrandt, DonPipho, Dick Stuckey, Amanda Sanchez and Kevin Cloe commemorating their accomplishments.  DG Nancy handed out Certificates to the 2017-18 Presidents Steve Bjornstad, Les Litzenberger, Tony Sambol, August Heiss and Laura Coughanour commemorating their goals.
 
Below are some pictures of the event