Early Riser

Lake Ridge Rotary Meeting
January 9, 2008

New Editor’s note: please let me know if I have gotten any of this wrong. I’m sure I missed some stuff, for which I apologize…
Thanks,
Dick

Happy Bucks:

A bunch of people were happy, but…

Happy Bucks ended on a very sad note as Gloria announced that she will be leaving the club. She will be looking for a club in Fredericksburg, closer to her new home.

Discussion:

Based on a question from Samia at the last board meeting, Larry asked that we have a brief discussion regarding the kind and level of activities in which the club should be involved.

Tom Rotelli said that activities require a clear commitment from club members. It is difficult to set up activities unless we know that there are sufficient members to carry them out, so we need to be clear about the dates and times, as well as the time commitment.

Victor said that it is not easy to get dates and times set up much in advance when trying to coordinate with outside organizations.

Jacques cautioned that we should not commit to too much since most folks in the club have significant work and family responsibilities.

Ben said that we should continue to block out time for special events (e.g., Celebrity luncheon) and make that a club priority.

Victor said that this issue shows that we really need to recruit more members.

Todd Hewitt said that in recruiting new members we need to continue to look for people at the Owner/CEO level—this is the focus of Rotary. The Club needs to have one major event each year (e.g., Celebrity Luncheon).

Larry summarized by saying that we are a busy group of people, so let’s see if we can continue with the things we do well. He said that Samia’s idea was to do more small, focused events/initiatives with the Fellowship House, and that there may be some opportunities to do that. Victor mentioned that we might wish to leverage our donations to help with this: for example, we might give money to the Youth Orchestra with the understanding that they will perform for the Fellowship House residents.

Reports:

Community Service: Not much happening at present—got some nice thank-you notes from organizations to which we donated money. Also, Samia will look into the small activities at Fellowship House.

Vocational: Victor said he will look into the support for the Fellowship Hose activities. He is also working with Woodbridge High School regarding the Rotary Speech Contest for students. He will be recruiting for judges from the club once a date is set. He is also working on setting up an Interact Club at WSHS next year, as well as trying to resurrect the Unsung Hero Award program for the club.

International: The GSE team this year will be coming from Brazil.

Paul Harris Foundation: At the suggestion of Samia, the Board voted to provide an additional $1000 to the Foundation for Polio Plus above the funds pledged by members in the challenge Samia promoted in December. The designation of points based on that $1000 will be done later.

50/50: Elbe was the winner, though it took him a while to realize he had the winning ticket!