Women in Rotary, please join me for the first ever Power of Women in Rotary event. We will celebrate of the first time in history that Missouri Rotary has been governed by four Women. Linda, Susan, Jayne and I have set aside Saturday, May 11th as a dynamic day to learn about women in service and women in leadership. The cost is only $25 and I can assure you, it will be an action packed day. Space is limited; so, please sign up at tinyurl.com/WIRConference.I look forward to seeing you there!
March is the last month to sign up for the June 1 -5 Rotary International convention in Hamburg Germany at a reduced price.
Join us in Hamburg for Rotary fellowship, education and inspiration. Check out this link for the speakers we will be hearing in Hamburg. Feel free to call or email me with questions.
Thank you to the UPS Store's customers' Monetary donations made to the Toys for Tots Literacy Program in 2018. Funds were matched by the UPS Store and were used to purchase over $300 worth of books for children. These books were donated to the Raytown Rotary Club to be used at Little Free Libraries.
The Kirksville Rotary Club donates books to the Adair County Public Library as a thank you to their guest speakers. Each meeting the speaker is given a book mark from the Adair County Public Library. Recently, President Randy Smith and President Elect Debi Boughton met with Librarian Sonja Hannah to purchase $250.00 worth of new books for the Library.
The members of the Kirksville Rotary Club also take a week each February and reads to all the third, fourth and fifth grade classes in the community. Dale Schenewerk, Rotarian and volunteer reader explains, “The students and teachers always enjoy having a fresh face come into the classroom. The opportunity to read allows us a chance to focus on the importance of reading and to introduce Rotary to the kids.”
The Plaza Rotary Club visited Operation Breakthrough on Tuesday, February 19th as part of the Reach Out and Read Challenge. 12 Members of our Club were given a tour of the facility by the ceo and read to pre-school age children in the program. The total time dedicated to the event was approximately 16 hours.
Pictured is our current inbound Youth Exchange Student Mina Aasmyr from Norway. Mina participated in the Truman State University Homecoming Parade with her hosts Kirksville Rotary Club, carrying the flag of Norway.
Your communications team of Kirby Asplund, Stephanie Smith, David McCaughey and Bob Merrigan (with a little assistance from the Executive Board) has created a new district flag and it is fantastic. Our district is outlined in yellow because we have a heart of gold. And our tag line is that we have a “Heart of Service in the Heart of America”. Congrats Team 6040 on a JOB WELL DONE!
Grants Training!
The Presidents and grant managers for 2019-2020 need to be trained by April 1, 2019 if you plan to do a District grant or Global grant for Kimbrough Challenge 2019-2020 year . If you were trained for 2018-2019 and are going to be a Grants Managers for 2019-2020, then you don't have to be retrained. If you have not attended a training yet, we have 3 Webinars for you to attend a training on Thursday March 7 at 5:00 PM, or Wednesday March 13 at 6:00 PM or a new date just added on Thursday March 21, at 5:00 PM.
The 18th annual “shoes season” is off and running. We are two months away from the Shoes Caravan (April 25-27), and Caravan Driver John Gill and I have developed a tentative Shoes Caravan schedule.
Both UPS and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway have again agreed to assist us with the transport of your shoes to Dallas, to be prepared for international shipment. Our UPS truck drivers, Patrick and Roger, will be with us again.
It was a resounding consensus at our fall 2018 District Conference to send our shoes this year to KENYA, along with some distribution in the UNITED STATES.
We will have our annual SHOES ROLL CALL OF CLUBS on April 27th at the District Assembly in Cameron. Our plan is to have the “John Gill trailer” at the District Assembly…with our traditional Shoes Caravan to precede with a few stops on Wednesday, April 24, then full days on Thursday, April 25, and Friday, April 26, culminating at the District Assembly in Cameron on Saturday, April 27th.
It may surprise some of you to learn that the Paul Harris Society is a relatively new recognition program that became an official Rotary Foundation program in 2013. This new program was developed to recognize those members who generously contribute significant sums of money regularly to the Rotary Foundation.
There is a difference, and some confusion, regarding being a Paul Harris Fellow and being a Paul Harris Society member, and I will attempt to explain the difference in this column.
In October 2018, I did a trek to Mount Everest Basecamp. After that, I met up with my wife and we toured other parts of Nepal visiting many World Heritage Sites. On our way back to Kathmandu toward the end of our trip, we stopped for lunch at the Airport Hotel located across the street from the Kathmandu International Airport. Their hotel sign announced the local Rotary Club meeting, which unfortunately had concluded before we arrived for a late lunch. As you may know, Nepal is a very poor country and has a great need for clean water systems, improved sanitation, and reduction in air pollution (both locally and from India and China).
Last May, the St Joseph area community and the four local clubs were honored to have RI President Ian Riseley come to St Joseph for a day. President Riseley had set a goal as he entered his Presidency of "planting a tree for every Rotarian somewhere in the world (1.2 million trees). The 4 clubs here accomplished the goal.
The Clubs were just notified recently that they were selected as winners of the 2018 Missouri Arbor Award of Excellence.
The Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA) and the Trails Head Chapter of OCTA present the “Truman & The Trails Symposium” from Thursday, March 14 to Saturday, March 16. The National Frontier Trails Museum (318 W. Pacific St.) in Independence, MO is symposium HQ. The symposium will focus on Independence and its role as a starting point for the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe Trails as well as Harry S Truman’s family ties to the trails and his later role in developing heritage opportunities along them.
Leadership skills are yours for the taking this spring in District 6040!
District 6040’s Rotary Leadership Institute (RLI) offers a unique opportunity for District Rotarians to complete the three-day course in just five weeks in March and April.
The series will begin in Chillicothe on Saturday, March 9, when all three Parts of the course will be available. Those sessions will begin with a light breakfast at 8 a.m. and will conclude by 3:30 p.m. Rotarians are high achievers, but it is not possible to take more than one Part in a single day because each Part is a full-day course. The registration deadline for all three Parts is Tuesday, March 5.
