West Bay Rotary Club Meeting

Posted by Jennifer Bell

September 11, 2014

WELCOME DISTRICT GOVERNOR!

Norman Angell , Quebec City Rotary Club

Norman Angell, District Governor, visited our club today for the yearly District Governor visit. D.G. Norman, and his wife Carol, are traveling the District to visit all the District Rotary clubs.

D.G. Norman discussed “Light up Rotary”, Rotary International President, Gary Huang’s theme for the year.

Increasing Rotary’s presence in and impact on local and international communities

Rotary is about changing other people’s lives.
Everyone has different reasons for joining. But many have the same reason for staying, which is helping people and serving our communities.
Doing one extra thing or having one extra person can often make the difference.

Increasing Rotary membership and improving retention of members.

Goal for Rotary International (RI) membership is 1.3 million world-wide. RI has had a static membership of 1.2 million for the last 10 years. Interestingly, an average of 100,000 members join every year, but we lose the same amount every year. So ask your friends, family, and neighbors to join and help retain our present members.
Our District has a low membership. D.G. Norman proposes the following challenge for the 52 clubs in our district. During the remainder of D.G. Norman’s year, which ends July 1^st, 2015, each club is challenged to recruit 5 new members and not lose any in the same time. That will increase membership by about 2000. This will bring us in line with the RI recruitment/membership goals for the 2014-2015 year.

Polio eradication around the world.

Three countries remain endemic with Polio, they are, Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. There are a few cases that occur elsewhere but they appear to be self-limited. We need to stay vigilant to meet this very challenging goal. The last 1% is the hardest.
Out of three Polio viruses, there only one type left. The vaccine is now much more targeted towards this singular virus.

D.G. Norman updated us on the District Project:

The District is participating in a three year water project in Nicaragua. The villages are near the border of Honduras in the Municipality of Waspam. These villages are without access to clean drinking water due to a devastating hurricane in 2007. The project involves digging wells and latrines and providing filters so every house can have clean water. Ten villages with 12,000 people will be equipped with this infrastructure. A maintenance program with be established as well.

The first three villages are named Ulry, Bachilaya and Tusku Tara. They are part of Steve Johnson's project.
The second phase, D.G. Norman’s, covers the villages of Sacklin, Tusku Sirpi, Wasla and Koom.
Next year, Al Feathers will cover the villages of Saupuka, Bileaskarma and Klar.

Next District Conference: May 8 – 10^th 2015 at the Le Bonne Entente, 3400 Chemin Sainte-Foy Quebec City. Please come!

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Rotary Information: Terry Bregy interviewed, or “roasted”, our District Governor about his qualification to be District Governor. Aside from all the good-humored badgering, we learned that the qualifications to be District Governor are:

Be a member of good standing

Attend an International Assembly for its full duration

Be a member of one or more Rotary clubs for at least 7 years

Serve a full-term as president of a Rotary club

The club is not indebted to RI

Rotary Leadership Institute: Will be held 10/18/2014 from 9-3pm in Lewiston. Talk with Sandy or Etienne if you are interested.

Road Rally will be postponed until Saturday 9/20/2104 to allow for Rotary members to attend the Memorial Service for Jim Laurita. The Road Rally will be held at the same time and place on 9/20.

Jim Laurita’s Memorial Service: Saturday 9/13/2014 at 1pm at the Samoset Resort, Knox County Ballroom. Donations to the Jim Laurita fund can be made through this link on the Hope Elephant’s website. http://hopeelephants.org/lauritafund/. Our hearts and support go out to the Laurita family at this time.