July was a FABULOUS month!

What a great start!  You launched your year with pizzazz and excitement!  Your leadership team and club are on board with your goals and pulling for you (and with you)!  You got through the first meeting jitters with ease!  You have a fabulous eleven months ahead of you!

We started the month by celebrating our “opening day” at PETCO PARK.  The only thing that would have made that night more perfect would have been a Padres win!  However, all of you are winners!

We ended the month with a MAGNIFICENT celebration of our Rotary Exchange MusiCamp at our District Council Reception and Concert on the beautiful University of San Diego campus.   Even the weather was perfect.

In between, we chartered a great new club (more about that below).   And Marilee, Carl, and I had the privilege of “officially” visiting twenty of your clubs!  Your enthusiasm is fantastic!  Thank you!

August is “Membership and Extension Month”

What an exciting Charter Night celebration it was for the brand new Mission Valley Sunset Rotary Club on July 9^th!  Over 200 people attended to congratulate and cheer on club president Matthew Guillory and the twenty-six other energetic new Rotarians.  Past Rotary International President Rick King gave a rousing keynote address.  The dinner was outstanding.  Champagne flowed.  Everyone had a great time. One of the evening’s features that impressed me greatly was the club’s decision to do TWO service projects on their Charter Night.  Following this year’s theme of “Building Communities – Bridging Continents”, everyone present signed a copy of a dictionary that will be presented to a student in the community.  And, in honor of the winning silent auction bidders, the club chose to give a portion of the proceeds to PolioPlus to buy vaccine for children in other continents.     Way to go!

Visit them on Wednesday evening at 5:30pm at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.   You’ll be impressed!  Check their website for program specifics at www.missionvalleysunsetrotary.org .  Congratulations Mission Valley Sunset Rotary Club and welcome to our district! 

And not to be outdone, there is ANOTHER new Rotary club forming in the East County!  The Rotary Clubs of La Mesa, Santee-Lakeside, El Cajon, and Lemon Grove are supporting the start of a new evening club to serve their communities.  The venue is Hooley’s in the Grossmont Center, relaxed but festive, a perfect location for winding down the day!  Their next meetings are at 5:30pm on Tuesday August 10^th and August 24^th. Do you know someone in the East County who would make a great Rotarian, but just can’t make a morning or noon Rotary meeting?  Invite them.  Better yet, TAKE them to the newly forming East County Evening Rotary Club.  Or just visit yourself some evening, enjoy the great fellowship, and encourage them along.  Check out their website at www.eastcountyeveningrotary.com.  

Cool Membership Tools

Want some cool tools to help YOUR Rotary club attract new members?  Go to http://shop.rotary.org/  and order several copies of Rotary Basics and What’s Rotary? for your club.

Rotary Basics is featured in this month’s Rotarian Magazine.  It is even personalized for our district – see AG Marilyn Sanderson on page 5!  This is a great document to give visitors and new Rotarians.

What’s Rotary? should be in all our wallets or purses.  It is a wonderfully effective way to answer the question “What’s Rotary?”.

I heard about a survey done recently in another district asking former Rotarians why they had resigned from their club.  The number one reason – “I didn’t make friends….”.  How very tragic!  Don’t let this happen in YOUR club.

Presidential Citation

As I travel around the district, all the clubs I visit are working on elements of the 2010-2011 Presidential Citation.  Rotary International President Ray Klinginsmith developed this insightful questionaire to help clubs “lengthen their stride and improve our levels of fellowship and service”.

From time to time, I will highlight in this newsletter what a club is doing to “lengthen their stride”.  One of the items in the Presidential Citation is to develop a three year plan.   Shadowridge-Vista Rotary Club president Debbie King chose to invite the District Strategic Visioning Team to her club last March to catalog some great ideas from her club members.   Her board and club members have followed through on those ideas and developed a fabulous three year plan.  See it at http://www.rotary5340.org/news/pdf/news10-28.pdf.

How we “Build Communities”

Our clubs do wonderful projects to serve their communities.  I heard about one such project this week that especially intrigued me.  The twenty-five member Santee-Lakeside Rotary Club has a big program that pays big dividends in the lives of high school students in their community.  Believing that Rotarians could offer friendship and support to students who had issues in their lives that might inhibit them from graduating from high school, their Club Foundation designed a program that would assist students at the three local high schools with one goal in mind – help them graduate from high school.  The deal was – graduate and Rotary will pay for their first two academic years of school at a community college.  The students sign a contract that lays out certain very important expectations – and the club members are asked to mentor at least one student.  What a commitment!  And what a service to their community!

The club is now supporting forty-five students in any given year!  Find out more by clicking on http://www.rotary5340.org/news/pdf/news10-29.pdf.

How we “Bridge Continents”

Mexico isn’t exactly another continent, but the needs there are similar to those faced in some of the far away continents we serve.  The Thousands Smiles Foundation (TSF) just recently celebrated its 25^th anniversary of serving the children of Mexico – it is the longest continous project in our district!  With many of our Rotary clubs’ support, the volunteers have provided over 1500 free surgeries in Baja to children with maxilofacial deformities.  The Thousand Smiles donors and volunteers change lives dramatically.  Children who were literally outcasts in their communities are restored to normal, healthy, respected individuals.

TSF President Kim Muslusky (at kimcog@san.rr.com) would be pleased to speak at your club.

Want to do a hands-on project in “another continent”?  Clinics are always held in Ensenada on the first Friday and Saturday of August, November, February, and May.  A bus leaves from the Chula Vista Shopping Center on Friday and returns Saturday.  You will be repaid with the satisfaction of a thousand smiles! 

You can learn a lot more by clicking on www.thousandsmiles.org

District Conference

OUR District Conference is less than three months from now!!  Yep, as surely you already know, the dates are October 21-24, 2010. 

OUR conference combines three big events – the Foundation Seminar, the Foundation Gala, and the District Conference into one fun weekend – at one low cost!  And, to reduce your costs even more, the friendly Rotarians in Fallbrook and Bonsall are offering their guest bedrooms for free homestays (limited offer -- first to register, first served)!  Come to Fallbrook in the Fall!

OUR conference speakers will include Dr. Peter Salk whose father, Dr. Jonas Salk, invented the first vaccine to rid the world of the dreaded polio disease.  And there will be loads of FUN events and surprises during the entire weekend.

It really is OUR conference – the one time each year all OUR clubs come together to fellowship, share ideas, celebrate, and just have good fun together. 

Today is a perfect time for YOU to go to http://www.rotary5340.org/conference1010/index.html and REGISTER.   We will have a Club President’s Meeting on Friday afternoon – you will want to be there.  There will also be an important Legislative Session that same afternoon.  This is OUR conference!

This week is a perfect time for YOU to start an effective promotion process at your club.  What YOU do in the next very few weeks in your club will determine the success of OUR conference.   If you need a little outside help, invite Bob James Jr or Nancy Russian to your club meeting!

We look forward to seeing YOU and a bunch of your best friends at Fallbrook in the Fall.