A long read, but great information!!

Its been a very busy couple of weeks. Carla and I actually got caught up on some of our Work Work but mostly we spent the last few weeks getting done the many things that fell behind while we traveled the District.
I put in about 12 Rotary meetings in the period, dealing with things like District Conference, GSE teams, Zone Institutes, Club awards, Conference hotel issues, District Budget etc. The District is going well and I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished. There are still a lot of loose ends such as District Dues for some Clubs, Membership and Foundation goal achievements etc, but we are getting there.
I had to prepare a report for the Rotary International Presidents Rep Arthur Harrington who will be attending our District Conference on behalf of the RI President. The document was very enlightening, because rather than looking at each different aspect of our District on its own, it summarized it. When looked at in its entirety, we are amazing. Simply Amazing.
There is a lot here, but I would recommend you take the time to look at it. It will give you a real overview of our District and make you very proud to be a member of the District 7020 Rotary world.

INFORMATION FOR PRESIDENT’S REPRESENTATIVE TO CONFERENCE OF

District 7020 Made up of the following countries:
Anguilla
The Bahamas
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Haiti
Jamaica
St. Barthelemy
Sint Maarten
St. Martin
Turks & Caicos
US Virgin Islands

The following is based on most recent information available:
Number of clubs in this district as of 30 June: 68
New clubs admitted since 1 July: 1
Number of Rotarians in this district: 2333
Gain (loss) in members since 30 June: gain + 43
We anticipate another 20 to 30 before the Conference
Names of RI Committee members or general officers in district:
RID Barry Rassin

Name, spouse’s name and club of incoming district governor:
Rupert Ross Jr.
He is a member of the St. Croix West Club
Spouse’s name is Cheryl
They reside in St. Croix US VI

Name, spouses’ name and club of district governor-nominee:
Errol Alberga
He is a member of the St. Andrew North Rotary Club located in Kingston Jamaica
Spouse’s name is Leonie




YOUTH EXCHANGE
Number exchanged by this district last year:
Sent abroad__0__ Received from abroad_____0______
Planned ___0___

Our District is working diligently on the Rotary Youth Exchange Program Certification, however it is a difficult challenge as we are made up of many countries and subsequently many different regulatory standards. We have a District Committee Chair assigned to this project.

INTERACT
There are 62 Interact clubs in this district, 59 are active

ROTARACT
There are 31 Rotaract clubs in this district

WORLD COMMUNITY SERVICE
I think our Think Caribbean Twinning program best illustrates the International initiatives here. Many are with mainland clubs connected with our Zones 33 and 34, but many involve much more than that. Beyond those, our Involvement with the TRF and the number of Open Active and In Process matching Grants best define our efforts here. See below:

Rotary Club of Southeast Nassau is currently working on a Matching Grant project to supply a solar oven to a hospital in Haiti. We are partnering with The Rotary Club of The Villages near Orlando and The Rotary Club of Pignon in Haiti. We have another project on the drawing board to supply drinking straws to school children in Haiti. But we have not identified a specific club for this yet. With are working with ADG Caleb on this one.
Rotary Club of St. John; We are still working on the grant proposal for the well in the Maasaii Community in Kenya. We are partnering with Steve Stiffler, Leesburg Noon Club, PO Box 49188, Leesburg, FL 34749. Steve has enlisted the help of the other 2 clubs in Leesburg to be included in the Grant Proposal for the well. I have also asked Steve to help with a Telemedicine Proposal which will link the Myra Keating Smith Community Health Clinic on St. John with the Cleveland Clinic in Fort Lauderdale. This would allow the doctors on St. John to communicate with specialists in FL to help diagnose patients in real time.
Our club is twinned with St. Thomas Sunrise. My Friendship Exchange Director and I went to St. Thomas in April. Financially helped them on a project in Haiti. They helped us out on a project here in Tampa. Their club members have been up here and attended our club meeting. We have stayed in Rotarian homes on St. Thomas. I have sent out an email to the membership, seeking their support in attending your club's Art Festival in January. I will let you know what the response is like, as members may be taking up the offer of free housing for the two days.
Rotary Central, Grand Cayman and Venice-Nokomis Rotary Club 6960 On another note, our club has been searching for a World Community Service project that falls within the theme of Water/Sanitation. After months of searching, one such project was located last week. PP Fred Speirs is heading up this project and will be contacting you to see if your club would be interested to work with us on this project. PP Fred will give you more details. I also understand that our President Sandy has contact you about the literacy programme. Let me know if you require anything else from us. I hope we will get some participation for the Art Festival. I believe it will be a good project for our club to be involved with. I advised the members that the best way to get to Nokomis is to fly to Tampa, then it will be an hour's drive to Nokomis. I hope I was right! Oh, I tried calling you and a nice lady answered the phone and told me it's about an hours drive from the Tampa airport.

New Providence Greeting from D7720, northeast North Carolina and Kitty Hawk, the place of the first flight by the Wright Brothers a year before Rotary was born. Good to see you in Myrtle Beach. Congratulations on your Rotary success in 7020 this year. I admire your ability to lead Rotary in many countries and situations. We are still interested in working with a twin club in your district and look forward to hearing from you soon. Bill Rogister PDG 7720

The Rotary Club of Portmore is partnering with The Rotary Club of Florham Park (New Jersey). The Florham Park Club will be sending us School supplies which we will distribute to three (3) High Schools in the Portmore Community.
Shirley President

The Rotary Club of Providenciales partnered with the one and only Rotary eClub (they are the first 'e club' sanctioned by RI - Here's their web site: http://www.recswusa.org/ ). Several of their members came down to TCI and we had a twinning ceremony with them. They brought dictionaries that we jointly donated to local schools, and they also assisted with a kids eye testing program we conducted. We hope to expand our twinning efforts with them in the coming year.

St. Andrew North is partnering with West Orlando Club towards funding our major project which is: the donation of one dialysis machine at the Kingston Public Hospital.
Discussions are in the works on the following International Service projects:
1. Partnering with the Rotary Clubs of Regina (Saskatchewan) and Machakos (Kenya) Clubs. Building of the 2nd of 2 water weirs in Kenya
2. Partnering with the Rotary Club of Petion-Ville, Supplying over 3000 school children with books and school supplies in 15 municipal schools in the area. Part of this project is to also set-up cyber cafés at the schools. There are 20 computers available from Canada. 10 of the computer have been shipped to Haiti. It is the hope of Rotary Sunrise to help in the acquisition of the remaining 10. I am waiting to hear from President Raphael.
3. Partnering with the Rotary Club of St. Andrew North, Supplying stretcher beds to Kingston Public Hospital for the trauma area. They will also serve as surgical beds. The project has been agreed at Committee level and just has to receive the blessing of the Board of Sunrise. The project is being funded through a matching grant and Rotary Sunrise is the International partner.

The Rotary Club of Christiana partners with the Rotary Club of Menominee, WI District 6220 for the past 27 years in the dental project.

For Downtown Kingston, we have 3 collaborative efforts:
1) East Queen Street Trade Training Centre refurbishment and equipment.
Subject of a matching grant with one of our twinned clubs, Marco Island
(Florida) and due for completion in January 2008.
2) Downtown Dash: A 5K road race scheduled for January 13, 2008 with contribution and support of our neighboring club of East Kingston & Port Royal.
3) Carols by Candlelight: a fund raiser with toys donated for needy children. Planning and logistical support provided by our other twinned club, Barbados. Scheduled for December 2008.

Abaco
Rotary Club of Windermere
Matching Grant granted totaling US$24,998 to assist Every Child Counts with the purchase of furniture and equipment for the school. This is an ongoing project that has been ongoing for the past 5 years. Every Child Counts (ECC) is a non-profit school which educates children with various physical and educational disabilities from all strata of the Abaco community. They have no financial support and rely on kind donations from the community to continue their program
Rotary Club of Winter Garden
Matching Grant granted totaling US$30,548 to assist with the installation of a playground for the children attending the Treasure Cay Primary School. This is our first project with Winter Garden who along with Windermere are from the Orlando, Florida area. We will assist Winter Garden with the installation of the playground in January 2008

Nassau Sunrise
RC of Fort Myers-Nassau Sunrise- assistance in March 2008 with our annual Reading Fair held on COB grounds,- distribution of dictionaries to schools in the Bahamas
RC of Gwinnett County, - funding of a Bahamas Humane Society education DVD project with Nassau Sunrise

RC Spanish Town -
We have twinned with RC Reston, Virginia, Club# 5828 and District# 7610.
I have visited them in October, and we have a matching grant application for a Water & Sanitation project signed by both clubs, and now delivered to DGC Dennis Chong. We expect to hear from him soon, as to how soon funds could be made available for this project. Reston is planning a trip to Jamaica to help finish the project, and this is scheduled for Feb. 2008

The particular project description is -
To provide a consistent water supply, through the provision of water tanks and accessories to hold water in case of outages, for three (3) schools involved in 'pre-school' activities (ie. ages 4-6 years). Location will be in the parish of St. Catherine, Jamaica. Project will also provide training in personal hygiene and 'hand-washing' skills for these children, as it is found that the kids don't develop good washing habits due to unavailability of a consistent and reliable water supply.
Overall project Cost is US$11,500. With contributions to come from both clubs, both districts and TRF.

International: Rotary Club of Charlotte Amalie
Host: Rotary Club of Navsari Round Town, Dist 3060, India, Description: This project is for avoidable Blindness. There are several patients who have developed matured cataracts and if not operated in time will become blind. Rotary Club of Navsari with the help of Rotary Eye Institute will organize a series of eye camps to identify 400 patients needing surgery. The patients will be transported to the hospital in Navsari. They will be operated on and given protective glasses and post operative medicines before returning to their homes. They will also be given free food. Patients will live a normal life after the operation.

The Rotary Club of St. Croix - Mid-Isle has partnered with the Rotary Club of Osprey, FL (District 6960) to provide air conditioning and some other improvements to the Boys and Girls Club of Christiansted, St. Croix. We have applied for a matching grant for this project. In addition, our club and the Rotary Club of St. Croix - Harborside, work collectively to provide Saturday morning breakfasts at the Lighthouse Mission in Christiansted. Our Rotaract club also joins in this project, covering the 5th Saturday as necessary.
Rotary Club of Road Town. We have partnered with The Rotary Club of Canton, Georgia and our joint project is to complete a resource center for the H.L Stoutt Community College. We have already applied for a grant from the foundation. Dr. David Murray spent one semester with us teaching at our Community College. He is a member of our twin club.

East Nassau & The East Roswell Club is in Roswell Georgia, district 6900. The size of the club numbers around 35 members. Our contact has been with their International Chair Mr. Lee Hollingsworth. Club web site is: http://www.roswelleastrotary.org/ We first made contact in 2006 thru the Think Caribbean website. We are presently working on a Grant to help Project Read, an adult literacy schooling program. Project Read needs books, teachers and an upgrading of their facilities. East Roswell is planning on a Trip to Nassau at the end February to help with the Project Read upgrade and to have fellowship with East Nassau. A disaster plan that includes East Roswell is being developed.

Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Central and Twin Club: Venice-Nokomis Florida Rotary Club The Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Central has a Literacy Program which has been in operation for many years. This program train members of our business community, who in turn conducts one on one sessions with members of the community that are illiterate. Thru this program many residence of the community have learned to read. The reading materials are special ordered from an institution oversees and dictionaries are also purchased for re-distribution to the students. This Rotary Year the Venice-Nokomis Florida Rotary Club will assist by donating dictionaries to the program.
The Venice-Nokomis Florida Rotary Club will be having their annual Art Festival on January 19, 2008. The Rotary Arts Festival displays the wares of approximately 180 artists and attracts thousands of visitors to the two day event held every January at the airport festival grounds. This year, they have invited our club to attend and participate. As such, some members of the Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Central will be attending the Arts Festival and will be put work by our friends. Both clubs are very excited to finally commence life long friendships and fellowship while performing good will on behalf of Rotary.

As Chairman for the TUTORING PROJECT I try to give you some information Since more than 7 years, the Rotary Club of Les Cayes and 2 other Club from ERIE/PENSYVANIA has been involved in a project just to help Students from Two schools to improve their capacity in FRENCH and MATHS and at the end of the primary cycle the Students will be able to pass with success the State exam.
L'ECOLE NORMALE" is a school that prepares and trainnes People to become Teachers. In coordination with the Principal of this school, Rotary Club of Les Cayes uses them as Tutors for helping students at the primary level to reach the goal of the project. They are working under the supervision of Monitors (2 / School). Each Tutor has 4 or 5 Students to help during 1 hour and 30 minutes 4 days a week.
The project supports the Tutors by helping them with the fees and scholarship and something has been given to each Monitor as a Gift per Month. It's a kind of promotion for developing Voluntarism with the Students - Teachers. Rotary Club of Les Cayes has to suprvise the project, prepare the attendance and performance reports, prepare the financial and written reports at the end of each school year. Other responsibility for Rotary Club of Les Cayes is to prepare the proposal including budget at the beginning of each school year.
The Clubs from ERIE and PENSYLVANIA are the Official Sponsors regarding financial part of this project. Between 10 and 12 Thousands US Dollars have been collected each year by those Clubs for supporting the project. Since 4 years we have been got 100% of success at the State Exam at the primary level with the Students.

St. Thomas completed the provision of an automotive technical school with the help of their twin club in Georgia. The also had a friendship exchange with the same club where members got to know one another and became familiar with each others needs and membership.



This says it all!!!!
Club Initiative 1 - Rotary Clubs of Kingston and White Bear Lake, Minneapolis
After nearly twenty years of association through many joint projects, Club Twinning was formalized on Wednesday September 26, 2007 at the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of White Bear Lake, Minneapolis, Minnesota. In attendance were Director Effiom Whyte (International Service), PP Andre Hylton (Club Twinning Chair) and Rtn. Scarlette Gillings (World Community Service Chair). The 2-day visit was a mutually beneficial one. Four (4) White Bear Lake Rotarians led by International Service Director Fred Treiber paid us a reciprocal 3-day visit November 28 to December 1, 2007. The programme of events included visits to two joint projects (A Computer Lab and a Medical/Dental Clinic), our Club’s 2007/2008 Major Project, and our weekly meeting, at which Twinning formalities were repeated. White Bear Rotarians will accompany their Interactors to Jamaica during Spring Break 2008 to execute joint community projects with Interactors sponsored by Rotary Club of Kingston.

Club Initiative 2 – Rotary Clubs of Kingston and Frankston North, Australia
The International Service Committee of the Rotary Club of Frankston North in Australia and through its PP Eric Neill requested our Club to participate in its International Project: Overseas Clubs – Toast and Information. Project Aim: “To make contact with four overseas Clubs, provide information on our Club, information on Frankston and Australia and obtain information from the overseas Club on their Club and Area and Country. The information would be discussed at our Club and the overseas Club on a similar date including joint Toast, exchange photos and Banners etc. This initiative could possibly lead to a friendship exchange.” We have accepted the invitation and have mutually agreed to stage this project on February 28, 2008 during Rotary’s World Understanding Month.
Club Initiative 3 – Assistance to Rotary Club of St. Marteen’s “I Can Foundation Home”
The request for assistance from the Rotary Club of St. Maarten with respect to the fire which razed the “I Can Foundation Home” was treated with urgency. Our original goal to raise USD 2000.00 and a promised matching contribution by Digicel Group’s CEO, through PP General Bob Neish, was bettered 5-fold. USD 10,000.00 (JAD 690,000.000) was presented to President Don on Thursday August 30, 2007 by Mrs. Stacie Mitchell-Fraser, Digicel Foundation’s Deputy Chair. Rtn Scarlette Gillings in turn presented Mrs. Mitchell-Fraser with a Rotary Plaque as a token of appreciation. These funds together with proceeds from our first Special Raffle were wired to St. Maarten North September 14, 2007 and receipt was confirmed with grateful thanks.
Club Initiative 4 – Second visit by Naples North Rotarians
Members of Naples North Club commenced a 4-day visit on October 18, 2007. Before attending our luncheon meeting, they were accompanied by Director Effiom, PP Andre, and Rtn Heron on a visit to the Dunrobin Basic and Primary Schools. Basic School Principal Jackson, the teachers and students were grateful recipients of educational supplies presented by President PJ and his 6-member team. Naples North was a generous contributor to this 2005/05 Major Project. The twinning Club Rotarians spent the rest of their time on a community service project in the parish of Portland.

Rotary Club of Spanish Town In the recent request by District Governor Richard, in partnering with a club for an end of year project, the Rotary Club of May Pen is considering your club in partnering with us. There is a project here in May Pen that we are considering as a required necessity; this is The Rock All-Age School. They are in dire need of infrastructures for toilet facilities for the students which at present are in a deplorable condition. We know that the health of these children is very important and we think that we should help in the best way we can. I await your response in partnering with us for this project. Thanks for your consideration.

Information for RC St. Thomas –
Twinned with RC Thomson, Georgia. Inward MG completed for High School, value $32,500 involved RC St. Thomas, RC Thomson and RC Dalton.
District 6910 DG Nathan Carmack, PDG jv Vlass and PP Ben Howell of RC Thomson visited St.Thomas in October, 2007 for RC St. Thomas 50th anniversary and visited the recipient school.
Outward MG, value $24,600, with RC Lira, Uganda, District 9200 for land mine victims. PE Roger White of RC St. Thomas visited Uganda in September, 2007 to see project. Also visited orphanage supported by a MG sponsored by RC St. Croix and subsequently gave presentation to RC St. Croix with pictures and information on their project.
Discussion with RC San Juan for joint literacy project in Gonaives, Haiti.
Discussion and preparation for joint project to be financed by an inward MG with a projected value of $42,000 involving all 10 clubs in USVI and RC Daytona Beach, Florida to supply school planners to all public schools in USVI for academic year 2008/9.
Discussion and preparation for outward MG application with value of $62,000 with RC Frederiksberg, Denmark, District 1470 and RC Lira, Uganda, District 6900, for rehabilitation of displaced persons in Northern Uganda.
Initial discussion with RC Frederiksberg, Denmark, District 1470 for inward MG, value not yet known, to assist with upgrades to historical sites in St. Thomas. International Director, Wein Demitros of RC St. Thomas will be visiting Denmark in January, 2008 and plans to discuss this project with Danish Rotarians.
USVI/BVI Friendship Day, October 2007 involved all clubs in both United States Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands.

Liguanea Plains
· We are having talks with Sunset Rotary of Tallahassee with regards to twinning. A delegation from that club is scheduled to visit us in February 2008.
· Matching Grant MG0659430, which was awarded to help provide computers and related equipment and furnishings; educational and medical supplies for the Education Centre and Clinic at the Church of St. Theresa in Kingston, Jamaica. International Partner: Rotary Club of Mission Bay in San Diego.

The Rotary Club of West Nassau is preparing a matching Grant with the Rotary Club of Boca Raton. The Grant is to provide the Childrens ward of Princees Margaret Hospital ten (10) Spirometer. Spirometers are used to detect, follow, and manage patients with Asthma, and lung disorders. The unit price of each Spirometer is $2,000.00 We have a meeting schedule with the Minister of Health in early January, but all our ducks are lined up for this project.

THE ROTARY FOUNDATION
Scholarships
Two candidates took up their scholarships in October 2007.
They are as follows:-
· Kaysi-Ann Spence- Entrepreneurship- University of Liverpool, England (DDF Scholarship)
· Adenike Stephenson-Social Policy and Planning for Developing Countries-London School of Economics, England (DDF Scholarship). She declined this scholarship because she received a more favourable offer and so the scholarship came over to this year.
· Mary-Anne Njeri Kamau-Geographies of Health, HIV Positive Women-Incomes- University of Western Ontario, Canada (Low Income Funded Scholarship)
There are two scholars selected this year to start their courses in October 2008. They are as follows:
· Luciana Marie Ramsay-International Law-University of Connecticut, USA (DDF Scholarship)
· Robyn Lynes-Family Law-Chicago-Kent College of Law, USA (DDF Scholarship)
There was a University Grant Teacher inbound last year to Tortola, British Virgin Islands. We had very little contact with him.

Group Study Exchange
This Rotary year we have 3 Group Study Exchange teams from D-6950 North Western Florida, D-6960 South Western Florida , and D-5490, Arizona. The reason we are doing three is that due to our Geographical diversity, and the tradition of the GSE team emanating from the sitting DG’s country or area, many of the countries and Rotarians within the District do not have the opportunity to experience the GSE Program. We decided to take this opportunity to make it a regional experience so all countries will have a GSE visit this year regardless of the DG’s location.
We intend to have 3 outbound teams and two inbound teams at the District Conference. The travel puzzle is currently being worked.

PolioPlus
Our District has phenomenal support for the Polio program. Our contributions to date have been. This year we funded an additional $5,000, plus sent a team to an NID in India. They are sharing the experience with all the local clubs and I am asking them to do so at the District Conference as well. I will have an article in the local newspapers about the teams experience as well.

Humanitarian Grants
Health, Hunger and Humanity
Describe the 3-H project(s) in which this district or club(s) were involved.

Individual Grants
We had one team apply for and get approval for the Volunteer Service Grant. The team was going to Uganda and had scheduled to visit 11 clubs or organizations to understand how they could be involved in the efforts to help land mine victims by providing prosthetic limbs. Due to a glitch in the RITS booking system, they ran into a problem with travel plans and subsequently lost the grant. They went anyway and did the project. I can provide you with pictures if you wish.

District Simplified Grants
We applied for the full 20% District Simplified Grant allowable and have dispersed about half of it so far. This year we invited clubs to apply for it on a matching basis up to approximately $1,000. The purpose was to get the weaker clubs to get involved and to understand the process. The invitations were issued by myself and were sent out for the most part after my travels, where I had a chance to understand the needs and abilities of the clubs.

Matching Grants
We are really exceptional in this area. We currently have 83 Open or In Process Matching Grants at work within the District. The total value of the project funding is approximately $3.300,000. TRF portion is $1,430,000, $850,000 in DDF, and $1,050,000 in cash committed.
Approximately half of them in Water related, and half of them in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Our District has established the Haiti Task Force as the conduit for all Foundation related projects into Haiti. We have established a Haiti Task Force whose role is to review the initiatives intended for Haiti with TRF involvement and to help designate the appropriate Club or Clubs and to ensure TRF compliance before moving forward. The team is aware of the size and capacity of the Clubs and the challenges faced by them. They also appreciate the responsibility that the clubs have when they sign on as a partner in a Matching Grant. The group does not replace the Club to Club connection, just ensures that we start off within TRF compliance, ie local community needs survey, local club involvement and club committee etc.. The Chair is Guy Theodore, and the committee consists of PDG’s and ADg’s.

Contributions to The Rotary Foundation
a) Target for this year is $199,000 up from last year by 5%+
Our top club Grand Cayman Central contributed over $454.03 per Capita last year followed by Nassau Sunrise at $432.26 and St. Croix mid isle at $398.78
All time giving $3,909,035


Paul Harris Fellows
There are 2256 Paul Harris Fellows in this district.
Benefactors
There are a total of 108 Foundation Benefactors in this district.
Bequest Society
There are a total of 14 Bequest Society members in this district.
Major Donors
There are a total of 20 Major Donors in this district

SPECIAL PROGRAMS
The projects done in this District are exceptionally unique. Because of the diversity of geographical, economical, social, cultural etc, club in each country does projects within the theme and emphasis and focus areas. The projects are community based therefore reflect the uniqueness of the geographical, economical, social, cultural of the respective club.
Projects such as literacy can range from the development of an occupation Skills Training Lab for at risk young men and women to providing a note book and a pencil for an empty class room.
Projects that are related to water can range from providing a life straw that purifies the water that you drink through it to putting in a RO system and storage tank to provide water in case of Hurricane and other emergencies.
Projects related to Health and Hunger range from providing 225,000 meals to the poor in Haiti through a Think Caribbean Twinning program to working with a group to feeding the Homeless in the USVI of which there are more than we have in the Bahamas or most other places.
Family of Rotary Ranged from home visits to shut in Rotarians to keep their membership and attendance alive to helping with the work in a community service project built around family driven community service projects.
Youth has been our primary focus. In some instances we provide hair clips for little orphan girls and soccer balls to the orphan boys. We also sent teams of young people to new York to spend a week to visit the United nations and to give them the understanding of the bigger perspective of the world.
Public Image has been undertaken with a passion. We have, again through the Think Caribbean Initiative organized to provide signage for clubs in Haiti where the club does not have the money, resources, or ability to have a Rotary sign made never mind installed. Districts in our Zone have sponsored signs which say Rotary Meets Here with the Rotary Logo and the name of the Club and the sponsoring Club/ District listed on the sign. We also applied for the Public Image Grant but did not achieve it.

Carla and I are off to the Leadership Traing in Ft. Lauderdale this morning and will update you further when we return.

New Blog out tomorrow!!!!

Not much travel but lots of good stuff. See you tomorrow.
DG Dick

I'm Back !!!!

Back again!
I thought a little update would be interesting. On Monday January 28th I met with Leslie Frazer who is Chairing the On Site Administration for the District Conference in May. We are working out the AV Equipment details for the Training rooms and Sergeants needs. I followed that up with a meeting that evening with Walter Christen, our District Treasurer to get the District Financial affairs up to date.

Tuesday followed with an Esso meeting (Actual work, what’s that about?) and then a GSE Team meeting that evening. We are moving on with the three teams, but the logistics of travel and timing is very difficult. Chair Murray Forde is doing a great job with his local and district committee and team.

Wednesday was a dentist day and my regular club meeting. It was great to be back with my club for a change. I’m still collecting the make ups though.

Wednesday evening we went to a Humane Society fund raiser. It was a trivia quiz game. A lot of fun, but I don’t know much trivia. They raised around $6,000 that evening.

Thursday morning we went to the Nassau Sunrise Club for two very special events. Firstly I presented PP and now ADG Felix Stubbs with a Foundation banner for achieving the special status of 2nd highest per capita contributions for a Club with $ 432.26 per capita, Grand Cayman Central took 1st place with $454.03 per Capita, St. Croix Mid Isle in 3rd with $398.78 per capita. If you see any of those clubs give them the accolades they deserve!

The second was a very rewarding moment for Carla and I. Our Daughter Ellissa, known as Lissa was inducted as a Rotarian into that great Club. As you can well imagine we are VERY VERY proud. She will be a great Rotarian. She is currently doing a lot of work with animal rescue and with the Humane Society.

That evening we went to a Club Fellowship event at Rotarian Ednol Smiths house. Ednol is ill and shut in but graciously hosts a fellowship event monthly at his home and many club members show up. True Family of Rotary stuff.

Saturday RID Barry Rassin and I met with a group of outstanding local Rotarians who will be helping us with the Zone Institute at Atlantis in October. We went over what local Rotarians would have to do and how they could support the Executive Committee. As usual they have given us all the support we need.

Over the weekend we planned to re-floor one of our Spas. It was quite an undertaking. We had or last customers in the Spa at 5:30 PM and once they left we moved everything, retiled the 3000sq.ft and were back up and operating by 7:00 AM Tuesday morning. What a great job done by Alvin our contractor. What a difference in the place!

Sunday we got a few hours in the boat at Rose Island. The water was cold but the beach and relaxation was outstanding.

Over the past week we had our regular club meeting and the speaker did not show. I was asked to speak, so I did and shared some of the challenges of the District. Wednesday evening we had a District Conference meeting, which went well. We are making some progress now and as time runs out we must continue to do so.

The balance of the week and weekend were spent trying to catch up on emails and home chores. I spent some time at the Humane Society today on a clean up effort. There is a lot of work that needs to be done there, but it is going to start with a good clean up.

We have a couple of days to get our businesses together next week and then we are off to New Smyrna and the Daytona 500. That’s our annual week vacation trip. We stay at a quaint B&B and just enjoy the tranquility. I’ll try to update you from there.