Some Ideas From the Mid-Term Assembly for Excelsior Rotary
Posted by Steve Frazier
on Jan 14, 2012
At the Mid-Term Assembly of District 5950 this past Saturday we had 16 speakers give short presentations about things that are going on in the district. Some of the ideas that were appealing are as follows:
1. Our Club should explore and began to use the community e-news website out of Minnetonka called PATCH. Our PR Committee will look into this option for coverage.
2. There are two grants that we could go after to help Camp Tanadoona. One is a local community action grant (CAP) that we could apply for and get up to $4,000. The main factor is that it would need to have our actual participation in building and/or fixing-up the camp. The other possibility is a matching grant (NCS) for a first time grant of up to $1,000. The district has money but the grant would have to be filed by Feb. 1, 2012!
3. Rotary encourages members to get involved in local community wide projects – to get involved early in the planning and to see it through to the end. Tim Litfin had a great idea to hold a local event called the “Excelsior Area Hall of Fame” to honor people from the community. We’ll get Tim to tell you more about the idea in the next several weeks.
4. There is an annual three day camp that is called “Camp Enterprise” and it is for students interested in business. Should we be sending one of our scholarship and/or STRIVE students to attend this camp?
5. District 5950 has a social media grant and Theresa Zerby is going to get our club involved in that grant so that we can reach out to folks in there 30’s and 40’s and to become more active in our use of social media.
6. Rotary has a Friendship Exchange Program and this year a group is going from our district to India for two weeks. There is also the opportunity to go as an individual or to work on a project. The neat this is that you stay with a Rotarian family while there and get to see things you would never see on a tour trip.
7. One club has started a STRIVE club at the middle/junior high level working with 9th graders as they get ready to go to the high school. Some other clubs allow students to be in STRIVE that are not seniors. Our club is discussing some options about allowing 11th graders to attend to get to them earlier than their senior year.
8. There is now an E-Rotary Club. This option is for members that can’t get away but want to be involved in a club and also to do community service projects. This is a good alternative for members that have to drop-out because of new job status or financial issues. This way they can keep their active status and possibly come back to the club in the future.
We’ll kick some of these ideas around with the board and in committees and see how they might apply to the Excelsior rotary club.