Meeting of January 9, 2013

Meeting of January 9, 2013

Reported by Dallas Chapple

Guests:

Visiting Rotarian and Speaker: Dennis Sutton (Harbourside)

Stephanie Shulman (Rotaract Club of Victoria), guest of Vicky Pitt.                                             

David King, guest of Don O’Coffey

Peter Pollen,  guest of Peter Sou

Health of the Club:

Mary Canty reported that Donna Chow had a little girl (Aila) and her picture was circulated (very cute!) Hans is waiting for surgery and was missed at the meeting.

Announcements:

Pablo donated $50 to the club from the proceeds of his concert.

Perry said that we have one more week for the Pennies from Heaven campaign. If we reach $1000, CIDA and the Bill Gates Foundation will increase it to $6000 which will buy 10,000 vaccines!

Fines Master:

Neil Rawnsley extracted money from almost everyone. He fined people for having their Xmas decorations still up, for not wearing Rotary pins and for many questions from the Rotary magazine to which we didn’t know the answers. We sang Happy Birthday to Lynne (Jan. 6), Perry (Jan. 1) and Joan F. (Jan. 10). Happy Birthday to you!

Speaker:

Mark Bedford introduced our guest speaker, Dennis Sutton from the Harbourside Club, who is the Secretary of District 5020 and who gave us an overview of how the District works. To wit:

A District is created by the Board of Rotary International, which designates the clubs to form the District. Our District, 5020, is registered as a non-profit organization both in WA and in B.C. There are 88 clubs in our District: 54 in the U.S. and 34 in Canada. Ours is the largest district in North America and the 10^th largest in the world. There are 16 areas with their own District Governors (the DG is the only officer of RI in the District.) Under the DG are several groups: the Continuity Group, the District Council and District committees.  To be a District Governor one has to:  

• be an ex-president with at least 7 years experience, 
• selected by nomination committees, 
• have 2.5 years of training, 
• visit each club in the district at least one time, 
• be responsible for youth programs, 
• attend RI meetings and international conventions.

What does the District do for the clubs and zone meetings? 

• PE training, 
• provide liability insurance, 
• training, 
• District Conferences, 
• Foundation—local fund/allocation, 
• New Generations, 
• Youth Exchange, 
• CRCID (Canadian Rotary and CIDA), 
• Friendship Exchange. 

Fifty percent of funds to the Foundation come back to the District. The District provides assistance with: 

• membership, 
• PR, 
• friendship exchanges, 
• grant applications, 
• literacy 
• and visioning.

Dennis was thanked for his very useful presentation by Tom Croft.