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President’s Message – June
A FINAL MESSAGE FROM A WONDERFUL YEAR
Dear Club Members,
First and Foremost, thank you for pro-viding me with a wonderful experi-ence over these past several months. We have all grown in numerous ways and I am honored that you trusted me to lead the organization in its first full official year.Club Presidents were asked by John Chapman to provide an overview of our clubs year for the District Newsletter, below is that article, with my love and friendship…Prior to my “year” our club developed an “Annual Plan” with all of our (and my) goals, visions, and musings that we, as first time Rotarians, could drum up in our little imaginative Rotarian new-bie heads. Those “thoughts” be-came our budget guide, despite the fact we had no money in the till (about $29.95), and only lim-ited Fundraising experience. So the new year began, and our twenty members set out to achieve specific goals they really wanted accomplished in 2008-09…..Funds for Mexico and Peru, Funds for Youth Pro-grams and vocational develop-ment, Community giving-maybe a Rose Garden, and lastly, of course, a strong commitment to the “Rotary Foundation” (which we really didn’t understand other than we needed to give to help the Polio Plus Program and something about matching funds).We knew we needed money, so we decided to hold a Fundraiser (actually our second). Our “land-loardress” came up with the idea of a Luau…it took no time to de-cide we’re game…so in mid July we planned for our first “official” Rotary Fundraiser to take place in late August. Our members toiled, met, worried, wrung our hands, then sweated and toiled some more the day of the event in August, the hottest day in 2008, and hosted 120 people from our community. Thanks to our friends at the North Sacramento Rotary Club, we actually made money at this event, not much but some.Next, our commitment was to the local school…in October, our members managed another steaming day in the sun making popcorn for 6 hours at the CRES Elementary School’s Harvest Festival. But WAIT! I forgot VISIONS!...As a first year club, we decided that hav-ing a group of District leaders assist us with building a clear direction for the future was very important. We worked with the Visions Team, set a date in Octo-ber. We had 99.9% attendance and we gained so much more than just the Visions Team goals…we gained a greater un-derstanding ourselves as a group and what we all find important. More about this at the end…We took the month of Novem-ber off, but on December 1st we began with a bang by our Day at the Plaza as Salvation Army Bell Ringers…we collected over $700 in one day from our community. Then it was on to our next offi-cial Community Project/Fundraiser – the Luminary Pro-ject. This project raises funds for St. Baldrick’s Foundation for Children’s Cancer Research. The year prior, we had made a commitment of $500 to St. Bald-rick’s Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research and made those dollars by re-implementing an old Rancho Murieta tradition – that of lighting the two main parkways in the Rancho Murieta Developments with luminaries (white paper bags with sand and tea lamps) on Christmas Eve. So from the beginning of December right through to the end, our members battled freezing feet and cold hands selling those lu-minaries to our neighbors. On the night of Christmas Eve…we were rained out, so our little group mustered up the energy to go out on New Year’s Eve and line almost 10 city blocks with luminaries….it was absolutely beautiful, and yes, we did raise enough money to support one of our favorite charities again this year.So the New Year came in, our 20 member band and dwindled down to 16, and we were all pretty tired, maybe a little dis-couraged too. Luckily, we re-tained members who were posi-tive and determined to keep our club going and be of service to our community and world….we were in fact what our Vision Statement Said: A fellowship of men and women dedicated to be-ing the premiere service organi-zation in our community and in our world.By February, things were look-ing up; we held our first anniver-sary Charter Night. We gained two new members who were ac-tive and downright inspirational….then another two similarly distinctive members in March. And the club president had made up her mind that it was time for a Party/Fundraiser for our Rotary Youth Programs….so in late February, we began plan-ning for our Rotary St. Paddy’s Day Bash. Wow, this event took off in the community and we had almost 170 people attend…and we made a little money too. Mind you nothing that some of you District Clubs make, but we all felt pretty good about it and had a bunch of fun too.As March ended the hectic April/May District events started up…no sooner did we finish a project than we had another right behind…PETS for our incoming President, GSE Team Hosting, Rotary at Work Day, District As-sembly, and then District Confer-ence (our club even won a few District awards!). Throughout the year apart from the above noted events, many of our members became involved in the RYLA, RYE, and GSE programs and learned, and recruited students to participate. We hosted two RYLA members this year, and we were able spon-sor both an inbound and out-bound student for RYE. Our club also was honored to host a GSE student for a week and also host the team for a day. For many of us, these youth programs have really helped us develop our sense of Rotary, its international flavor, and the Foundation value.Some of us became involved in trying to pull off a matching grant for a joint club project in Mexico. Although we did not get the grant, it was our introduction to the process and members that were involved in this now have some knowledge to help us have a successful project in the future. One of our members (our founding father in fact) was put on the Foundation Board and then was voted to be the 2009-2010 Assist District Governors for Area 8.As my year ends, I have a lot of thank-yous to the District leaders, but mostly to my own club members, who weathered my leadership, stepped up to the plate, made a run, and for the most part made it all the way home to achieve the winning point. We’ve become a true fel-lowship of Rotarians, here in Rancho Murieta, with energy and dedication that I’d match up against any others in the World. We live by the motto “Service above Self” and we do our best to live and act by the four-way test (which I still don’t always keep in order).My very best wishes for our incoming leadership and our new President Jay Beals. I know we’re going to have another AMAZING YEAR!
Yours In Rotary,Lilli DuVal, President – 2008-09Rotary Club of Rancho Murieta
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