District Governor David’s Message
July is Transition month
What a great time to be a Rotarian!
The picture of Susan and me is not your typical District Governor and partner photo, and that is because this new Rotary Year is going to be far from typical.
One person captioned the picture as business on top and play on bottom. I prefer the quote from Michael Caine “Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.”
Your club president and their executive will be working over the next 6 months to build an action plan that not only will help set a plan for our current environment but one that will guide us into the next 5 years.
This is Rotary’s plan for the next five years: to increase our impact, expand our reach, enhance participant engagement, and increase our ability to adapt........
Increase our ability to adapt is what clubs have been doing over the last 4 months and now we can work on the other 3 pillars.
Your district leadership team in increasing our ability to adapt and finding opportunities to enhance your Rotary experience. Rotary leaders around the world are not traveling and are available to join us virtually!
July 14 @ Noon Rotary President Holger Knaack from Germany will be our guest speaker at the first District 6330-member exchange zoom meetings. All members are welcomed to join, and we will also be sending a link when the meeting starts so you can join us through YouTube or Facebook live if you prefer.
Holger will be presenting how Rotary Opens Opportunities and this is a real opportunity for you to hear and ask questions of your Rotary President.
As you enjoy this great summer weather I want you to think how Rotary has opened opportunities for you and if you like, email me your response to david@davidelliott.ca as I would like to know the different ways Rotary has impacted you!
Thanks again for all you do for Rotary, belated Happy Canada Day to our Canadian Rotarians and Happy Independence Day to our American Rotarians!
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As I said in my June Newsletter, I am the last of the Road Warrior Governors and the first of the Virtual Governors so visiting clubs, the largest time constraint on the role has evaporated overnight. By digital means we can be anywhere in the world. Our RI Directors, the District Team, Governor, Clubs and all our members are now more accessible than ever before. As someone said we may be further apart but we have never been as connected.
There is an expectation among some members that the DG is the fountain of all knowledge about Rotary. While this is very flattering and I enjoy interacting with members I encourage all members to simply google the question they may have before phoning or emailing the Governor as many of these questions can be quickly answered by a quick referral to Rotary.org or the District6330.org. Some of the most common questions are: “What are the current Rotary Dues?” “How do Paul Harris Points work?” "How do I apply for a District grant?
I have recently received a number of questions from across the District on how best to respond over diversity and racism in these uncertain times.
At the RI Virtual Conference last week President Mark Maloney Rotary’s reminded all Rotarians that our core values are the bedrock of our organization:
Fellowship
Integrity
Leadership
Service
Diversity
He went to say “we must become better listeners and be more openminded learners” and he urged “all clubs to hold a mirror to ourselves and ask if our membership and club experience reflects the diversity of our communities…. where ever we come up short we must be willing to correct our course and face the challenge without fear or hesitation”
Thank You to everyone for making the District 6330 Virtual Conference a SUCCESS!
After 20 months of planning a traditional in person conference, spread over 2 1/2 days we had a visit from Covid.
What to do? How to do it? Where to do it? Cancel it? Those were the questions. Thankfully due to our early planning we had a good idea of what we wanted. No idea of how to do it?
No to cancelling! No to 2 1/2days ….. three months of re-imaging, great technical support, above and beyond cooperative speakers (guests in the virtual world) and enthusiastic attendees we had a Conference. Would it work? Would anyone tune in?
We got our answers…
373 people registered on Zoom prior to ‘Go Live” from 14 different countries. 248 were online by 9 am which peaked at over 274 and even as the credits rolled, 198 remained online:
Are you unsure where to start with your new member orientation? Have members learn more about Rotary and even test their knowledge with the new Rotary Basics course in the Learning Center. They’ll read about Rotarians from around the world, learn about our values and causes, and deepen their understanding of Rotary through this interactive course.
The Rotary Basics course was designed for new Rotarians, but it’s also a great refresher for other members — and even nonmembers — who want to know more about Rotary.
To take the class, use the link above. Anyone who isn’t signed in to My Rotary will be prompted to do so before going to the Learning Center.
Rotarians, we are people of action. Right now our action just looks a bit different than it did a month or two ago. One of the best things that we can do right now is to STAY AT HOME and use our large lists of contacts to share accurate and needed messages. They may simply be messages of encouragement or they may be messages that will help to protect our front line workers and our neighbours.
The Ontario Government is telling residents in urban areas to avoid heading to their cottages and rural properties across the province during the COVID-19 pandemic. We would like to reinforce that message as small towns in “Cottage Country” are in a high-risk situation at the moment for the following reasons:
The Rotary Foundation Trustees and RI Board of Directors have added a new area of focus: supporting the environment.
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District Governor David’s Message
