President Ken opened the meeting, welcomed everyone – including special guests Marlene Frisbie (District Governor) and Sonya Martin (District Assistant Governor). Bob shared a thought for the day.
Ken shared a few announcements after lunch:
- Everyone is reminded to please attend the Operation Warm benefit the evening of September 26. Tickets are still available (click here). Rich shared that there are many items available through the silent auction, and you can bid online even if you cannot attend. But please come!
- We will be helping with the harvest at Glencoe Community Garden on October 9. Our meeting will start at 12pm rather than 12:15pm that day, and we will have boxed lunches delivered.
- We will not meet on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Day – these holidays all fall on Thursdays this year.
Thomas shared that our Club will hold a happy hour at Fred’s Garage on October 14, 5pm to 7pm. He asked everyone to not only plan to attend but also bring a guest who may be interested in joining Rotary. There will be future similar events as well!
Michael shared a story for Dig-n-Grin, and Happy Bucks were shared by Patti, Moha, David (Birkenstein), and Tony.
Ken introduced our speaker, Marlene Frisbie, our District Governor. Marlene introduced herself and shared her history with Rotary. She shared reflections on the difference between joining Rotary and becoming a Rotarian.
Marlene then spoke about the Rotary Action Plan, a form of strategic planning that is being implemented across Rotary International. There are four key elements:
- Increase our impact: measure your impact and tell the story of the good that you are doing.
- Expand our reach: grow and diversify our membership.
- Enhance participant engagement: do everything you can to ensure everyone is involved and having a positive experience.
- Increase our ability to adapt: learn to do things in new ways and embrace new things.
Marlene shared stories to illustrate each of these points. She encouraged us to think long-term, continually looking three years ahead. There are many resources to help us create an Action Plan available on the District website (here) along with a toolkit available through Rotary International (here).
Marlene also shared three of her personal initiatives that she is working on during her tenure as District Governor:
- Encouraging every Club to do some kind of environmental project and commended us for using compostable plates and forks at our meeting.
- Encouraging more Rotarians to attend the District Conference, which will be held November 1 (morning) at the College of DuPage. Registration will be open soon. Click here for more information.
- Raising awareness of cervical cancer, which is caused by HPV and is entirely preventable by getting vaccinated against HPV.
Marlene concluded with the Rotary mission statement and challenged us all to unite for good in our world.
The meeting adjourned with our usual recitation of the 4-Way Test.