Dear Dream Team,

 

It is a beautiful March morning as I write to you on this the first day of Literacy Month for Rotary.  Is your club participating in a Literacy project this month?  What a great time to read to a child, recognize a student or teacher of the month, or sign up for a dictionary project.  Maybe we should all take some time to read a good book ourselves!  I know I haven’t had much time to read lately.  J

 

Membership

 

You are all working diligently to retain our wonderful members and get new ones during these challenging times.  As a reminder, your total membership on March 31 is what counts for both the Presidential Citation and the District Distinguished Club Award.  So keep working on it!  We will all benefit from keeping our great members and bringing in new ones.

 

We are very close to chartering a new club, the North County New Generations Rotary Club!  They had their President-elect at PETS and are almost there.  If you know of someone that might be interested in a Tuesday evening club in the Vista area, please contact AG Scott Cadwallader.  I will also soon be asking for some financial assistance from the clubs to help get this club off to a great start.  Thank you for your support.

 

Foundation

 

Your donations to The Rotary Foundation are at 65% of your goal for the year.  Year to date, we have given nearly $300,000 to the Annual Program Fund.  I am optimistic that we will be on track even though our giving is down 17% compared to the same time last year. 

 

The voting is taking place for the Future Vision Pilot with Saturday March 7 being the deadline for the club’s ballots.  I’ll announce the results shortly after that.  If you haven’t sent me your ballot, please do so.

 

Susan Thorning has been working overtime to get as many matching grants processed as possible.  I am honored to have approved so many outstanding projects.  Let’s all hope that we are able to get the funding for many of them from The Rotary Foundation before they run out of money.  Because of her tireless effort and our early deadlines, we are in a good position for that to happen.

 

Our fundraising for PolioPlus is growing.  Eleven clubs have met their $1,000 goal for this year.  Some clubs have done much more than that as we would expect.  There are lots of good ideas on the Rotary International website for ways to raise the funds.  I am confident that we will exceed our goal of $60,000.  Several of our district Rotarians are in India right now administering the vaccine drops.  I’m sure they will have inspirational stories to tell when they return.

 

Did you hear that you can text “polio” to 90999 and it will make a $5 donation to the effort?  It could be a fun way to fine those folks whose cell phones go off during the club meeting!

 

District Conference

 

It’s time for you to sign up for the District Conference.  You can find it on the District website through the link at the bottom of this newsletter.  Louise Andres and Laurel Ball are leading a terrific committee who will be contacting clubs soon to arrange for visits to promote this outstanding event. 

 

However, even more important, it is time to reserve your hotel rooms.  We have an amazing rate at $185 but we will have to turn back unreserved rooms the end of this month.  If you try to get a room after April 1, you will have to pay the standard rate which looks like about $225 a night. 

 

Now here is a thought.  We are all “hunkering down” a bit these days.  I know that many folks are postponing that big vacation in lieu of shorter, closer to home trips.  Here you go!  Why not take advantage of the great rate and come to Temecula Creek Inn May 14-17 for the District Conference?  It is a beautiful resort.  Besides the great Rotary speakers and fellowship, there is golf, tennis, a spa, wine tasting and charming Old Town Temecula.  What a great place for that mini-vacation! 

 

Another thing to consider is that you can help your members save money by going dark that week and have your meeting on Friday at the District Conference.  The club could help pay for members to attend by possibly using the amount that would have gone to the weekly meeting and apply that to the members cost of the District Conference.  At the Friday lunch meeting, Michael Josephson is our speaker.  He is with the Josephson Institute of Ethics and has been working with our RYLA team and other RYLA teams in the Western United States to develop curriculum for even better RYLA programs. 

 

District Assembly

 

March 21 is the District Assembly at the University of San Diego.  AG Bob Franz is chairing this event for DGE Marge Cole and has put together an outstanding program, including RI Director-Elect John Blount as the speaker.  Remind your club’s President-elect that attendance at this event is a requirement.  But even more important, encourage your club’s officers and newer members to attend.  They will learn so much.  This will be the only educational event this year as the Matching Grants Seminar, the Membership Seminar and the Public Relations Seminar are being bundled into this one event to save your time and your dollars.  Finally, attendance at this event counts towards your District Distinguished Club Award.

 

 

The year moves on and there are many children that still have dreams.  Let’s all do all that we can so that we can say at the end of the year that we did indeed Make Dreams Real for the children of the world.  Thank you for all you do.

 

 

Future Dates to Save

 

March 21, 2009              District Assembly

April 4, 2009                  Model UN

April 7, 2009                  District Council – Four-Way Test Speech Contest

April 17-19, 2009            RYLA

April 25, 2009                Rotarians At Work Day

May 14-17, 2009            District Conference

June 9, 2009                 District Council – End of Year / Start of Year Celebration

 

 

Pam Russell

District Governor 2008-2009

Rotary District 5340

Telephone: 619.723.3651

Fax: 858.271.4138

www.rotary5340.org