Yours Truly along with PE Nate provided some noteworthy information (we thought anyway!) during our final Club Assembly meeting of the year. I began by listing the various website locations we use to promote what our club as well as the district and International do. If you have not visited any of these sites please do so as they have a ton of important information about Rotary.
Following my presentation was our upcoming president Nate Smith who shared his experiences at the recent President Elect Training session (PETS). Nate began by saying that it was an amazing opportunity when you can interact with four other Rotary zones and representatives from over 300 clubs from throughout Michigan, a portion of Indiana and Canada.
 
The conference, he said, featured many fine speakers including Jennifer Jones, RI Vice President from Windsor and Ed Futa – former General Secretary of RI in Evanston. Nate reminded members of all the work Rotary does and asked us to focus on a time when our club no longer existed and what shape this community and the surrounding area and even the world would be in without people like us serving humanity. There wouldn’t be clinics on the Amazon Basin, the Croswell might not be here, etc. Nate said that he didn’t want that to happen on his watch so will want everyone to be engaged, excited, and proud of who we are as a club.
 
His hope in the coming year would be to increase our membership in terms of numbers and diversity that reflect the community we serve and that we all take a hard look at the projects we’re doing and ask if they are making the difference we want in addition to presenting our brand in the community.
 
Nate also wants each of us to be more intentional about and more engaged in what we do. He said he wants members doing what they’re passionate about and wants to know those who would rather be doing something else and therefore much happier serving. Nate told members that he will be personally calling on members in the future to either chair committees or to see what they would like to be involved in and hoped they would be open-minded and honest with him as to where they would like to serve.
 
Nate also said he is encouraged by the collaboration with other Rotary clubs in our area which we have not seen in the past. We need to continue to be more intentional about doing more joint projects in the future. The RI Theme at RI this year is Making a Difference and for District 6400 under the leadership of Rick Caron in 2017-18 it is Boldly Go Forward.
 
Spoken like a true President, Nate! Thanks.