President Matt Weaver convened today’s program by announcing it was Club Assemby Day. Instead of the normal round tables, we had long banquet tables which could accommodate 20 persons for lunch. He indicated that each Director for a service area would be addressing the table about their avenue of service. Each director was allocated 10 minutes to discuss his or her area of service.
Erik Barter, current vice president and the club service director discussed his avenue of service.
He stated that he works with President Matt Weaver and President Elect Brad Miller. His job is to keep members interested in the Club, help in bringing in new members, making the luncheons appealing; exciting programs and maintaining the Community Bulletin Board. Projects that Rotary is working on this year are: providing Shelter Boxes for displace persons in Pakistan, after the devasting floods; the Relay For Life where we are coming up with$5000 which is being matach from other clubs, the Club’s own Foundation, the Rotary Foundation and two clubs in Pakistan. We started off talking about sending three shelter boxes to Pakistan and now we are up to 35 boxes. Other service projects are providing fresh water to villages in Cambodia, and Roltoplast, which helps kids with cleft palates, to have them surgically altered. Barter stated this information is available on the Club’s website.
Bill Gleason, the current Vocational Director, spoke about his projects for this year. A number of projects are the Four Way Speech Contest; the Dan Stover Musical Award Contest, where winners at Arcadia get to compete at District, Regional and National for a chance to win a scholarship worth $5000.
Another project is the Mini Grant at Arcadia High School, where Rotary donates funds to a teacher to enhance the learning experience and have access to learning tools not available from the school. A new project for Arcadia Rotary with be the Boys and Girls Club of Monrovia. We have budgeted $5000 for this project which will include instructional and educational instruction to help teens get to a better place career-wise.
Geoff Tookey, membership director, talked about the campaign for new members. Rotary membership is down in all clubs. Arcadia Rotary currently has 104 members, and the normal amount is 110 to 120. One way to stimulate growth is to award those members who sponsor new members and when they do they will be rewarded. Classification of members has also been enlargened to permit a greater range of potential members.
Mike Ojeda carried the ball on Community Service. He discussed a number activity or projects Arcadia will be involved in this year, such as Juvenile Disbetes and the Red Cross Blood Drive.