Our club meets each Tuesday morning at 7 am at Rotary House.
We are a small club. Since we were chartered by Rotary International on May 16, 1997, we have always been at least 20 members and have had as many as 33 members.
Prospective members should be aware of the fact that we are a busy group. In addition to our weekly meetings we are generally engaged in several ongoing projects.
Each year we brighten the lives of many people with Roses from Rotary. This involves several weeks of selling Roses (actually they almost sell themselves) and then an evening of sorting, trimming and boxing the flowers followed by a Saturday morning of delivering them. If you have never delivered flowers, you are in for a treat. There are few things in life as sweet as the smile on the face of someone who unexpectedly receives a dozen roses. It does take some time, but it also produces significant revenue to fund our club projects. We are getting this fundraiser down to a smooth routine.
This is only one example of the kinds of things we do to raise funds and at the same time increase the profile of our club in the community.
Our weekly meetings follow a familiar format. We start sharp at 7 (or if we don't, the Sgt at Arms has an easy target for a fine!) We begin with the National Anthem and grace. Members rotate in these duties. Without much delay, we serve ourselves up a hearty breakfast. Just as the slow eaters get near the end of their meals, The club president heads back to the podium to see that our visitors and guests are properly introduced and any announcements of interest to our Rotarians are presented. That done our guest speaker is introduced.
Always the highlight of our weekly meeting, our guest speaker then has our focused attention for 20 minutes or so.
After our speaker has been properly thanked for taking the time to bring us her or his message, we usually have a 50/50 draw and our Sgt at Arms takes a round out of us. His or her fines are usually a buck and mix wit and humour with a reminder of some of the things Rotarians stand for. The Sgt usually allows those on hand to put in a Happy Buck or a Sad Buck accompanied by a BRIEF explanation.
Unless there are some closing announcements, that usually winds up the meeting. As a morning club, we know our members have the day ahead of them so we are careful to end promptly at 8 am.
We have a lot of fun. We build friendships. And in the course of it all, we follow the motto of Rotary, which is Service Above Self.
Our club, like all Rotary clubs, begins its year July 1. Each year we have a new president and a new executive. We also have a President Elect, a secretary, a treasurer and a board of directors responsible for Club Administration, Club Public Relations, Membership, Service Projects and The Rotary Foundation. We have committees for each Avenue of Service. They are Club Service, Community Service, Vocational Service and International Service.
Are you interested in Rotary? You might want to get in touch with our Membership Director, Larry Mix, if you have any questions. You could check out our Rotary Links page (see the menu above) or have a look at Joining Rotary at the Rotary International web site.