Greetings fellow District 5495 Rotarians. November is Foundation Month, and on November 10 a highlight of the season will be taking place, The Foundation Dinner and Show featuring Rotarian thespians.

 

 

This is a not-to-be missed event at the Sheraton Phoenix Airport hotel, 1600 S. 52nd Street in Tempe. Seating is limited and registration is filling up. The cast and crew have been working hard in order to present a fun-filled evening. In addition to the play there will be other highlights during the evening, but this is not a fund raising event and you will not be hit up for a donation. Make plans now to attend.

 

 

 

                                               

The Rotary Foundation is very much the key to all that we as Rotarians are able to accomplish in our local and regional communities and around the world. During my club visits, 60 of which will be complete by the time you read this, I have purposefully not hammered on the clubs and their members about having to donate to the Rotary Foundation. That line of conversation is somewhat of a turnoff. At the end of October we will be a third of the way through the Rotary year. Our contributions to The Rotary Foundation are lagging. As I write this, as a District we have given only 20 percent of the amount that we gave in 2017-18 to the Annual Fund. Similarly, we are lagging in donations to PolioPlus, standing at only 18.8 percent of the amount we invested in Polio Eradication in 2017-18. As I am prone to say, there is room for improvement and we need to step it up. Keep in mind that investments (donations) to the Annual Fund come back to the District in three years for our use. 

 

I should also like to mention, I guess, another item that I have not hammered hard enough, that fewer than 50 percent of our District clubs have entered goals into Rotary Club Central for Annual Fund giving and/or PolioPlus fund giving. It’s really not that hard.  On both the Rotary International website as well as the District website there is material available that clearly shows how to enter a goal. Your AGs can help you in this area as well. It’s time to get this done folks. I have enough things to do without having to take on the mantra of District ogre!

 

We stopped to recognize World Polio Day on October 24th. Many clubs had activities associated with World Polio Day. In the latest report from the Polio Global Eradication Initiative, dated October 23rd, it was noted that we now have had 22 confirmed cases of polio thus far this year with the onset of paralysis in the latest two cases occurring on 22 September and 25 September in Pakistan. That puts us at 16 cases thus far in Afghanistan and six in Pakistan. In all of 2017 we had 22 cases worldwide. So 2018 will definitely represent a setback in our efforts. But we cannot quit now. We have to see this to the end, regardless of when that may be.

 

Please remember to watch the weekly DG videos. They have been concentrating on the Governor’s weekly travels, but that will soon end and the videos will become more informational in nature, and perhaps somewhat less frequent. Share the videos with your friends outside of Rotary. You might be surprised to find that they can actually generate some interest in Rotary—who we are and what we do.

 

Marty and Doc have been working hard on the DeLorean, but parts have been hard to come by. They got the car working again, but it was only able to return them to 1959. Maybe next month we will have more success.