District Governor Bob Stowell Visits the Excelsior Club
Our program on October 9th was the annual official visit of the District Governor. This year, the district governor is Bob Stowell, who is a member of the Burnsville Club.
He started his talk with three statistics: there are 62 clubs in our district (5950), there are 538 districts in RI covering the whole world, and our district has participated in 70 international projects recently. Because of our districts donation record, RI favors our requests for international projects. He talked then of Polio Plus, Rotary’s 27 year project to rid the world of polio, and how there are now only 3 countries that have children who are contracting the disease. India, the most recent country to have a polio-free year, has to have two more years before they can be declared polio free. The three remaining countries are among the most difficult areas to work in, because of armed conflicts and the peoples’ fear of immunizations.
Bob then told a bit of his personal history, explaining his strong feelings about food depravation and clean water projects.
This year our district’s focus is in three areas. (1) healthy clubs, (2) higher level of humanitarianism, and (3) increase public awareness of Rotary projects. Bob wants to have all of the clubs healthy with active involved members, and each club having a full social and service calendar. He did mention that interested Rotarians can help at the district level and above by working on district committees.
Adding to the projects done by clubs is another focus. There are so many places that need help that our clubs should be able to heighten the projects proposed this year.
The general public is not aware of the many projects done locally and internationally by Rotary, and the third focus is to make the public aware of what we are doing.
Next week: The Annual Report of the Excelsior Rotary Foundation with Don Draayer