August 27, 2006
Issue 9

Dear Rotary Leaders,

Great Ratings for The Rotary Foundation
Charity Navigator, the premier charity evaluation service in the United States, awarded the Rotary Foundation its highest rating of "4-Stars" for sound fiscal management. You can view additional information on The Rotary Foundation page. The Rotary Foundation is one of 1,085 charities to receive this coveted designation, out of the more than 1.4 million US charitable organizations eligible for this honor.

Rotary Foundation Newsletter
If you are looking for more news on The Rotary Foundation, check out www.ourfoundation.info. This will bring you to a section of the Rotary Global History Fellowship website, where you will find the archive of the "Our Foundation" Newsletter for the last 2 years. This newsletter has a limited distribution but is availabe to all on this website.

2006-07 Membership Numbers
Since many clubs are "cleaning up" their rosters around July 1st to lower their dues, we have a big membership drop in July. The current report shows a loss of 43 members in the District. We will need major efforts from the clubs in the District to overcome this. Remember that one of the requirements to get the Presidential Citation this year is to have a net gain of one member for your club.

Foundation Raffle
Remember that there will be a Foundation Raffle for the Paul Harris Dinner of November 11. Raffle tickets are given for contributions to The Rotary Foundation prior to November 11. Remind your Foundation Chair to get your club contributions in early this year...

Circularization Rules
There are some rules in Rotary that Rotary Clubs are not allowed to solicit other clubs for help or money without the authorization of the District Governor. These rules are there to protect the clubs from receiving too many solicitation and either spread themselves too thin, or feel bad for refusing to support other clubs. This is why we don't allow to have the price of a club fundraiser into the Quickbits. Check out the Manual of Procedure (MOP) page 9 and 28, and the Rotary Code of Policies (RCP) page 48 for more information. These rules also applies to clubs from the neighboring districts. It came to my attention that some clubs in Orange County have sent some unsolicited information to the clubs of District 5340 about a project called Snowball Express. Let me know if you received such a solicitation and did not want to receive it. I will make sure you are taken off their lists.

Snowball Express
Even though the Snowball Express project did not respect the circularization rules, it might still be of some interest to some clubs. The proper channel is to have me send you this information, and you can contact them on your own if you want more information. Here it is. This is a project for all of the 1,200+ children who lost a parent serving in the U.S. Armed Forces in either Afghanistan or Iraq. This got started by the Rotary Club of Costa Mesa, District 5320. They are going to fly all the children and their surviving parent/guardian to Southern California this December, throw them a huge party and let them spend a day having fun at Disneyland. If your club wants to be involved you can check their website at www.snowballexpress.org. This project is growing very fast and getting lots of support from companies and celebrities.

Philippe Lamoise
District Governor 2006-07
Rotary District 5340

	September 16 Foundation Seminar Salk Institute Breakfast 7 am., program 8 am. to 12 noon One of the most stimulating event of the year! Don't miss this first class event about all the Rotary Foundation programs in the District. The keynote speaker will be Rotary International President Elect Wilf Wilkinson. More information...

You can find more information on District events on the District Website.