At our Aug. 22nd meeting, we had District Governor, Don Sword, who brought greetings from RI President Ian Riseley and introduced the theme for 2017-18 “Rotary Making a Difference”.
 
He mentioned that although Rotary was begun on Feb 25, 1905, the need for Rotary was never greater than today.
 
Don mentioned a quote from Paul Harris 80 years ago when he said “This is a changing world and Rotary must be prepared to change with it.” We must keep our clubs vibrant, relevant and attractive. He then mentioned his 3 C’s Consistency, Continuity, and Collaboration.
 
Rotary wants to adopt a new slogan: Rotary People of Action.
 
Rotary is built on friendship.
 
The nature of training is changing, TLC or Training Leaders of Clubs means that everyone can benefit from leadership training, not just presidents and secretaries. He encouraged more Rotarians to attend these TLC training conferences.
 
Don went on to challenge all club members to introduce/induct at least one new person to Rotary each year.
 
Don went on to talk about the Rotary Foundation. There were only 8 cases of wild polio virus in the past year and only 3 countries are still considered, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Rotary Foundation is 100 years old this year and recently won an award as the best charity in the world.
 
Don then shared his vision or “P.I.P.E.” dream for District 7820 in the coming year. He plans to focus on Public Image, Peace and the Environment. For Public Image, Don encourage Club members to go to rotary.org website to make sure our Branding is current and to obtain any promotional materials with the right Branding. For Peace, he would like the Club to have one meeting this year devoted to Peace & Conflict resolution. For Environment, he is requesting that a tree be planted for every member of the Club. Since Bob would say that you already did this, try to find something else related to the environment. 
 
He also encouraged members to register for the District Conference in St. Johns as well as the International Conference in Toronto in 2018. He spoke about the International Conference being in Toronto in June, 2018 and encouraged people to attend. He also spoke of a Bus our being arranged by Rotarian, Duncan Conrad, for the International Conference. Please contact him in order to make arrangements.