On behalf of the Officers and Board of Trustees, I wish to congratulate 2015-2016 President Beverly Ghent-Skrzynski on an excellent Rotary year filled with many successes. Thank you, Beverly, for your dedication and commitment to our Club throughout your many years of service and for helping us Be a Gift to the World.  We all wish you well on your journey to becoming District Governor in 2018-2019 and stand ready to help you however we can.

 

I also want to thank Sharon Lerch for her hard work during her first year as Executive Secretary of our Club. Sharon assumed many new duties, in addition to ones she already held, with grace and a willingness to pitch in whenever necessary. I look forward to working with Sharon during the coming year.

 

I have four goals for this year involving transition, membership, communication and Foundation.  First — the transition to operating our Club without an Executive Director. Past-President Beverly started us down the path of self-sufficiency. I will continue to encourage the committees and those members handling special projects to become more involved in running their own committee or project and less dependent on “the office” or the President. The committees will continue to review their projects to determine which ones to continue, which ones may have run their course, and which new projects they might want to explore.

 

Second — membership.  Past-President Beverly initiated 16 new members in the 2015-2016 year!  I want to take advantage of that momentum and continue to build our membership with quality members. But we also need to engage our new members in Club activities so that they become active members and leaders in the Club. One way to do that is to encourage them (and our existing members) to propose new service projects such as our work with the Homeless Stand Down project last January and with our anticipated work with the Salvation Army this year. To that end, the Rotary Foundation is offering a grant of $2,500.00 to any member or group of members who proposes a new service project.  More information and the proposal form will be available soon. Another way to engage all of our members is to continue our monthly social events, some of which will involve families with children. We will also continue our After-Hours meetings, hopefully on a monthly basis.

 

Third — communication.  We want to keep our name out in the public eye and build on our current good will. No one should have to ask “What is Rotary”.  Sharon has developed a wonderful online newsletter to keep all of us up to date and is working on improving our website. I want to increase the number of people who post on FaceBook, Twitter and other sites about our Club. I would like to see more articles about our Club in the District 6630 monthly online newsletter, and in other publications.

 

Fourth — Foundation. This year we are celebrating 100 years of accomplishments of The Rotary Foundation. As the home club of Arch C. Klumph, Father of The Rotary Foundation, we have a special responsibility and privilege to honor his memory and vision. John Germ, President of Rotary International, Kalyan Banerjee, President of The Rotary Foundation, and numerous other members of the Rotary world will be celebrating with us in October. We do not want to be embarrassed by a poor showing from Arch’s Club. We will be asking each of you to do what you can to support the celebration and The Rotary Foundation.

 

President John Germ has selected the 2016-2017 theme ROTARY SERVING HUMANITY. He stresses that every day you serve in Rotary, you have the opportunity to change lives — one good work at a time — one day at a time.  We are a part of Team Rotary, 1.2 million members doing good around the world. I encourage you to be an active member of the Team.

 

Sincerely,

Julia R. Brouhard

2016-2017 President