Cleanup in Reading, Kansas

On November 12th, Rotarians, Youth Exchange students and friends all traveled to Reading, Kansas to help clean up tornado damage from earlier this year.  More pictures are available at: http://philput.smugmug.com/Youth-Exchange/2011-Rotary/111211-Reading-Tornado/20113176_vpMLV4#1587378365_bZZpjBG 

Rotarians and Youth Exchange students from all over District 5710 met in Reading Kansas to help with the cleanup after the tornado damage earlier this year.  A message from District Governor John Vandewalle: On behalf of Rotary District 5710, I want to thank all of you for getting involved in helping the people of Reading, KS.

As Rotarians and friends of Rotarians, we pride ourselves in being able to touch the hearts of humankind one person at a time.

We are always distraught at hearing of the devastation and destruction people are being subjected to around the world and often despair.

Being associated with Rotary allows us to not only despair but to act and often when others have already made their contribution and moved on, we are there.

Reading, KS was almost totally wiped out by tornadoes but the people are coming back despite the hammer of misfortune. To a large degree, this small community devastation was  somewhat overshadowed and forgotten by the limelight received by the tragedy in Joplin, MO.

Each one of you if you were there in person or in intent contributed to the wellbeing and future of hope for the people of Reading. To all the leaders and organizers, be proud of yourselves and we are thankful that you chose to come to the fore on this occasion.

I am sure that we will be back in Reading in the spring to spurn their situation and give the people a renewed appreciation of the good in their neighborhood and a future of renewal.

This was a true District wide response that brought many clubs, Rotarians and friends together in our District and allowed us to realize that we can be Bigger, Bolder and Better.

Reaching within to embrace Humankind is what it is all about.

Summer Lewis World Peace Scholar

Our very own District 5710 Rotary World Peace Scholar, Summer Lewis, is doing great!  She has finished 2 semesters of her program and is currently in South Vietnam working an Internship for a few months in her area of study.  Check out her blog akansandownunder.blogspot.com

Zone Institute 2011

 Last week in Rockwall Texas was one of those invigorating events where your batteries are recharged about Rotary.  Rotarians from Montana down to South America all came together for training and fellowship.  Early in the week was training for incoming District Governor (DG) Nominees and DG Elects.  Also this year 2 Rotarians intersted in furthering their Rotary carear attended District Resource Leader training.  Later in the week all Rotarians met for the Zone Institute where we heard from several Rotary leaders.  Our RI President Elect, Sakuji Tanaka and RI President Elect Nominee Ron Burton spoke about the future of Rotary.  Our new RI General Secretary John Hewko stopped by on his way to India to give us an update on the Secretariat.  Next year the Zone Institute will be held in Overland Park and all of our District Rotarians will be able to attend and help out with this great event.

The Future of Rotary Is In Your Hands

Last week at the International Assembly where all the District Governors for the 2009-10 Rotary year are trained, our RI President for 2009-10 John Kenny (Scotland) presented his RI theme for the year.
"The Future of Rotary is in Your Hands."
The world is changing, and if we are to keep Rotary alive and well, we must also change. The future of Rotary looks very exciting. Our Rotary leaders are working hard to provide direction that will encourage us to grow as an organization. Both in membership and in the service that we can provide to others. The Future Vision plan will be difficult to embrace, but only because it is change and change is hard. The end result of this new direction for our Foundation has been cussed and discussed at many levels and many times. It has been changed and changed again. And it may still change more.
Lets take this new theme and run with it as individual Rotarians, because Rotary is not RI in Evanston, its not the District, but it is individual Rotarians like you and me, working in our clubs on projects that put Service Above Self.
Click on the link for this blog to be directed to the RI website and learn more about the theme and the International Assembly.

What A Guy !!

You may get frustrated at his personal computer operating system software (windows), but you gotta love his understanding of the polio eradication effort around the world and his commitment to help Rotary elimate this disease from our world.

Last week at the new District Governor training event in San Diego, The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation made another monetary commitment to the fight against Polio. Another $255 million. That brings their total contribution to $355 million. If you read more about this, you will learn that Bill and Melinda Gates traveled to India for a NID (National Immunization Day) and first hand experienced the work being done by Rotary and its volunteers. They saw our commitment, strong management of the funds and determined this was a cause to join.

The original $100 million was a matching grant where us Rotarians matched the contribution. We are working on that now. The latest report is that we have $73 million on the books with outright contributions and solid commitments. With the latest contribution by the Gates Foundation, our matching portion has been increased by $100 million to a total of $200 million.

We can do it!

Along with the Gates Foundation new grant, the United Kingdom signed on for $150 million and also Germany for $130 million. With this flurry of recent events, it brings the total to $835 million for the fight to eliminate polio. LETS FIGHT!

Click on the title of this blog to be directed to the Rotary International website on this subject where you can get more details and view video's.

Zone Realignment

We have talked before about how Rotarians are organized into Rotary Clubs, Rotary Clubs are organized into Rotary Districts and Rotary Districts are organized into Rotary Zones.

We in District 5710 are currently part of Zone 29. The picture on top is a current depiction of Zones 29 and 30. Kansas to Ohio and Illinois to Louisiana.

During the last Rotary International Council of Legislation, it was determined that due to the declining membership in the US, we would have to eliminate a Zone and a realignment would be necessary to equalize the membership numbers among the Zones.

The map on the bottom is a depiction of the new Zone structure for the US. District 5710 will become part of Zone 27. Kansas to Idaho and Montana to Texas.

The Zone realignment will take place effective July 1, 2009.

Hurricane Damage in Haiti

Four hurricanes within a span of a month have caused massive flooding in Haiti, sending local Rotarians scrambling to provide help for thousands displaced by the storms.

Our very own Past District Governor Bill Kromer of the Leavenworth Rotary Club, participates in annual humanitarian trips to Haiti providing much needed medical, educational and nutritional aid to the citizens.

The situation in Haiti is very bad and they need our help right away. Having made so many trips to Haiti, knowing the problems they face on a daily basis and the extreme contitions these people are now facing, Bill is once again extending his knowledge of the area, people, politics and contacts he has made throughout the years to direct aid where he knows it will be used to help people and not be wasted.

Lets all join in this effort and send what we can to help the suffering in Haiti. Send the collected funds to (checks payable to: District 5710) our District Treasurer, Stan Teeter (address in the District Directory or on the District website). Indicate Haiti Relief on the memo of your check.

RI website story on Haiti:

http://rotary.org/en/MediaAndNews/News/Pages/080912_news_hurricanes.aspx

Rotary Expands Into a New Country

The Island Nation of Kiribati is the newest country to experience the world of Rotary. On August 11 2008 the Rotary Club of Kiritimati was chartered with 35 new Rotarians. The Islands of Kiribati are formerly known as the Christmas Islands. They are located in the Pacific Ocean, northeast of Australia. They gained their independence from the United Kingdom in 1979, official language is English and their major income is tourism.

A Rotarian from Commerce City, Colorado who had vacationed in Kiribati for years saw the potential for Rotary and with his club, was instrumental in the introduction of Rotary and the eventual extension of Rotary with the Kiritimati Rotary Club. Welcome.

End Polio Now

We Can Do it !!!

OK....lets just say you had been working to eradicate polio in the world since 1983. You had been working with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You were down to the last 1%....the hardest and most expensive part of the effort....

Now this new guy comes along and says, I believe in you. I believe in you so much that if in 3 years you and the other 1.2 million Rotarians in the world can come up with $100,000,000 that I will give you a matching $100,000,000 to finish your dream. And he believes in us so much that he has already given us his $100,000,000 !!!

Well, this guy (and his wife) is Bill and Melinda Gates and their Foundation.

Now all we have to do is have each Rotary Club (all 33,000 of us) donate $3,000 to our Rotary Foundation under the name of Polio in the next 3 years! Piece of cake !!! Now we know that there are some very small clubs around that could never make the $3,000. But we also know that there are some very large clubs that can make a lot, lot more than $3,000. So it will all even out. The main thing is that we do what we can, and do it as quickly as we can.

Many of you may remember donating to Polio eradication in the past. Some of us, 2 times. So this time, lets get everyone involved. And I don't mean just Rotarians, but the members of your community. Use the resources that Rotary has provided and educate our communities about Rotary's effort to eradicate polio. Set up fund raising events so they can participate and feel good about being part of the solution.

click on the title of this blog to get to the Rotary website, specifically the Polio section.

In 1988, 1,000 children a day were diagnosed with Polio.

In 2007, worldwide 1,315 cases were diagnosed the entire year!

That's progress!!

Think where we will be after this last push. Lets get out there and get this done !

More website links for Polio eradication:

http://www.rotary.org/en/EndPolio

http://www.polioeradication.org/

Rotary Club Trainer

Do you know everything there is to know about Rotary?

I know I don't, and I bet your Rotary Club members don't know everything either.
And I'm not suggesting that every Rotarian should know everything, but we want to keep Rotarians in our clubs, and the best way to keep them is to make sure they are engaged in Rotary and have knowledge about the organization.

In an effort to help educate our Club Rotarians, the Club Trainer was established by Rotary International in late 2006.

Our Rotary District 5710 made the commitment to embrace the Club Trainer position to help ensure that our Club Rotarians were as informed as possible about Rotary and our programs. The more informed we are about a subject, the more we will see all the good things that are going on and the more involved we will become.

Each club needs to establish the position of Club Trainer and ensure that the position is filled each year with a Rotarian that will take the initiative to use the materials available to teach their club more about the World of Rotary.

If your Rotary Club does not have a Club Trainer, ask your Club President to do something about it !!

It doesn't take that much time. Maybe just 5 minutes at a club meeting to have a question and answer session, maybe have a Rotary minute each week with helpful facts about Rotary, or maybe at a club assembly, have some District Committee chairs come in and have some round table discussions. Anything you can do will be of service to your club and the world of Rotary.

Learn more at the District 5710 website: http://www.rotary5710.org/

Click on Training in the left column, then on the Training page, in the left column, click on Club Trainer.

Rotary Zone Institute

So, what is a Zone Institute? Well, Rotarians (you and me) are organized into Rotary Clubs, Rotary Clubs are organized into Rotary Districts and Rotary Districts are organized into Zones. Zones cover a large area and are represented in Rotary International by a Director. We are currently part of Zone 29 and represented by RI Director Tom Branum. You club presidents may remember him as he was one of the speakers at our President elect training seminar (PETS) in April 2008.

For economic benefit, Zone Institute is combined with Zone 30, so Zones 29-30 have their event together.

Zone Institute is really training. Early in the week the District Governors elect get some much needed training and the District Trainers have a day to learn more about Rotary and how to get Rotarians in their District trained.

The rest of the week is spent in different sessions, speeches and breakouts with Rotarians providing Rotarians information about what is going on, status of our Foundation, goals, objectives, projects, etc. It is really great!

We also get to hear from next year's RI President, John Kenny from Scotland. DK Lee, our current RI President, will also be there to speak to the group.

This year's event will be held in Indianapolis (hence the logo) September 9-14.

Learn more at: www.rizones29-30.org/home.php

More later.......

District 5710 Foundation Banquet

Rotary is an International organization.

Sure, we do a lot of local projects that help out our communities, but in the big picture, we are all about helping people all over the world.

The reason we are able to fund all these projects is our own Rotary Foundation.

By giving to our Foundation we are able to financially support our mission of world understand and peace. In the meantime, we work to eradicate Polio from the WORLD; provide scholarships to those who would dedicate their lives to conflict resolution; help young business men and women live in another part of the world for a month and see how their profession differs from their country with Group Study Exchange; more scholarships for Ambassadorial Scholars to study for a year in a university of a foreign country; in developing nations, provide clean water, provide eye surgery, prosthetics so people can walk again; oh yeah, the matching grants we use to fund our local projects....and the list just goes on and on !!!

All this is made possible by our Foundation, we need and must support it financially. How many other foundations dedicate 100% of the donations to projects?

Now, here is an enjoyable way to help, attend our District Foundation Banquet!

Block of the date, November 8, 2008.
It will be held at the Overland Park Sheraton, 6:00pm

Go to the District 5710 website http://www.rotary5710.org/ for more information and a registration form. There are many options available, buy a table for your club and give a Paul Harris Fellow recognition, have your company sponsor a table and get your business promoted or just come and enjoy with your spouse.

From the main page of the website, click on events at the top, then go to November on the calendar, there it is on the 8th. (November is Rotary Foundation month)

Hope to see you there !!

District Foundation, Membership & Leadership Seminar

Our District Foundation, Membership and Leadership Seminar (FML) was a great success. For the first time we used our new website functions for registration and 97% of our attendees registered via the website!!! Thanks, its working!!

Pictured from left to right are PDG Rick Tinucci, our Rotary Zone membership advisor, DG 5710 Vickie Randel and Todd Lindley, our Rotary Zone Foundation advisor. Rick and Todd are from our neighboring District 6060 that includes the St. Louis area. Rick and Todd were gracious enough to make the drive to Topeka and provide our District Rotarians with some great information, thanks! We also had many of our own District Rotarians providing breakout sessions on many different subjects regarding Foundation and Membership.

Another part of the seminar is the Leadership session. We had 3 excellent topics covered: the Leadership Model 1 & 2, leading volunteers and meeting management. The comments received about these sessions were outstanding!

Some of the handouts are available on the District website, http://www.rotary5710.org/ under the Training link in the left column of the homepage, then the Foundation, Membership and Leadership Seminar link in the left column of the Training page. More will be added as we can put them out there.

Mark next year's date in your calendar for this event: August 8th, 2009

Rotary International President 2008-09, DK Lee

The President of Rotary International for 2008-09 is DK Lee from South Korea. He is pictured here with his wife, Young.

DK Lee's theme for his Rotary year is "Make Dreams Real".

His top area of focus will be the reduction of child mortality rates: "Rotary will turn the dreams of a safe and happy childhood—a childhood that becomes a long and healthy life—into a reality because all of the world’s children, are our children.”

Read the press release on the Rotary International website:

http://www.rotary.org/en/MediaAndNews/PressCenter/PressReleases/Pages/083006_pr_DKlee.aspx

View DK Lee's "Make Dreams Real" theme presentation at the International Assembly in San Diego on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsJijThnAHY

Welcome to Rotary District 5710's blog

We are now into our 2008-09 Rotary year. Our District Governor, Vickie Randel, is from the Lawrence Rotary Club. She started her term as District Governor(DG) July 1, 2008 and will be leading us until June 30, 2009.

As DG, she is in the middle of her 'club visits'. Vickie is in the process of visiting each of our District's 48 Rotary Club's. As you can imagine, quite a scheduling task. But to hear her talk about it, she is enjoying every single visit and is learning about all the great things that the clubs in our District are accomplishing.

If you are wondering when Vickie will visit your club, the schedule is posted on the District web site.

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