District 6290 NewsletterDistrict 6290 Newsletter Regardless of what the groundhog saw in...

District 6290 Newsletter

Regardless of what the groundhog saw in Pennsylvania, spring is fast approaching and exciting things are planned for the rest of this Rotary year. First on the agenda is PETS (President Elect Training Seminar). The dates are March 18-20, 2010, at the Radisson Hotel in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Attendance is mandatory for every President Elect in the District. The organizers have a great agenda planned. RI President Elect Ray Klinginsmith will be attending and will be a featured speaker. This is your chance to meet the RI President for 2010-2011 and hear his vision for Rotary. Past RI President Rick King from California will address the group on Friday evening. Mr. King is one of Rotary’s most popular speakers and truly inspirational. DGE Tim Knaggs and District Trainer Tom Bos have some great break out sessions planned for the PE’s of District 6290. PDG Betsy Demaray will present her popular “Rotary 101” presentation. PDG Demaray was recently elected a Rotary Director for our Zone for 2011-2013, so this is your chance to meet the first ever Rotary Director from our District. President Elects, this is your chance to get your Rotary battery charged for your year as club president so you can hit the ground running as you begin your term of office. March 27, 2010 is the date for the Thirsting to Serve Water Conference. The Conference will be held at the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College in Grand Rapids from 8:30am to 3:30 pm. You may register on line on the District website. Please plan on attending this exciting and informative event. The conference will feature speakers from various countries involved in water projects, including Africa, India, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. Clean water is Rotary’s next big project after Polio Plus. This is your chance to find out first hand what is going on in this area and become involved. Please plan on attending. The next big event on the calendar is the District Conference (DisCon 2010) which is planned for the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The dates are May 14-16, 2010. Paul Carrier, the conference chairman, has an exciting line up of events planned to advise you of what is going on in District 6290 and to entertain you. Your DGE Tim Knaggs has planned the District Assembly for the afternoon of Friday, May 14, 2010. This is a must attend event for incoming club officers and other interested Rotarians. An outing to a Whitecaps baseball game is being planned for those who do not have to attend the District Assembly. Lunch that day will be a joint meeting with the Grand Rapids Rotary Club. Our Speaker will be RI President’s Representative PDG Alastair K. Denholm from Glasgow, Scotland. I am sure he will have an inspirational message from RI President John Kenny. On Sunday, May 16, the memorial service for Rotarians who passed away during the year will be held at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and will feature a wreath laying ceremony at President Ford’s grave site. President Ford was an Honorary Member of the Grand Rapids club for many years. Registration details will be forthcoming soon on the District website. The final event of our Rotary year is the Life Leadership Conference to be held June 16-19, 2010 at the Kettunen Center in Tustin, Michigan. PDG Norm Veliquette and Conference Director Chuck Bell put on the best leadership conference in all of Rotary. Now is the time to recruit your candidates from your local high schools. This is truly a life changing experience for the attendees. The Rotarians in District 6290 stepped forward in a big way to respond to the crisis in Haiti. The results of our efforts are outlined in articles in this edition of the newsletter. The response of our clubs in the District was amazing. A great deal of money was raised just for shelter boxes, water filters and contributions to special funds. Rotarians are great humanitarians in times of crisis. I am pleased and grateful at the response from clubs in this District. Thank you and God Bless you to those who helped out. After all, we are Rotarians and this is what we do. DG John

District Governor John Salan and Helen Salan [email protected]

Message from the District Governor

February 2010 Volume 1, Issue 8

Shelter Box Initiative 2

DGE Tim Knaggs shares his ex‐perience at RI Assembly

3‐4

End Polio Now 5

Canadian Weekend with RYE 6‐7

Water Trip to the Dominican 8‐9

Emily’s Peace Trip Update 10

Club News 11

4th Annual Foundation Banquet 12

Upcoming Events 13

Attendance 14‐15

Inside this issue:

Special Dates to Remember

• March 18-20, 2010 PETS

• MARCH 27, 2010 CLEAN WA-

TER CONFERENCE

• APRIL 17, 2010 FOUNDATION DINNER

• MAY 14-16,2010 DISTRICT CONFERENCE/ASSEMBLY

• JUNE 16– 19, 2010 LIFE LEAD-

ERSHIP CONFERENCE

mailto:[email protected]

THE DISTRICT 6290 SHELTER BOX INITIATIVE

News from Haiti

• Tuesday, January 12—2:53 in the afternoon—7.2 magnitude earthquake hits Haiti—epicenter just outside Port-au-Prince, the capital.

• By Sunday, January 24—at least 52 aftershocks of a 4.5 or greater magnitude continue to devastate the Haitian people.

• Sunday, February 7—the numbers keep coming in: over 3 million people affected; 212,000 people identified as dead; 300,000 injured; 1.5 million homeless.

The members of District 6290’s World Community Service (WCS) Committee reacted in dismay to this natural disaster, just as did other Rotarians and people around the world. Fortunately, the WCS Committee was in a position to respond rapidly in its desire to help. By Thursday, January 14, the WCS Committee had agreed that it would take its remaining funds to match automatically any grant applications that were submitted for Shelter Boxes. The clubs within the district were notified of this decision, and by Saturday, January 16, the first grant application was received.

As of Monday, February 15, through the participation of 23 clubs combined with district money and in the case of our Canadian clubs matches from the Canadian government, District 6290 has raised $83,225.99 to go towards Shelter Boxes. At $1,000.00 per shelter box, that will purchase over 83 boxes. And, we know of at least two other clubs that are in the process of submitting grant applications. This is the good news. The only negative is the fact that the response has been so great that the WCS Committee has not been able to provide a 1:1 match. The match has dropped down to approximately $.85 on the dollar.

Why did the WCS Committee choose the Shel-ter Box project? Although not a Rotary Inter-national initiative, Shelter Box International is a result of the vision of Rotarian Tom Hender-son, and the relationship between the two or-ganizations is a cooperative one that is en-dorsed by RI. In fact, the RI logo is on each shelter box. Second, all of the money donated to Shelter Box, which is a 501 (c) (3), goes to-wards the boxes and their distribution, not to administrative costs. Third, Shelter Box has a reputation of getting the job done; they get the boxes to the people in need. Within three days of the earthquake that hit Haiti, Shelter Box International was delivering the containers to families in Haiti. By February 7, over 7,000 boxes had been distributed. In some cases, the boxes were diverted to hospitals and orphan-ages. Since 2001, Shelter Box International has been actively involved in over 100 disasters.

What is a Shelter Box? It is a large, light-weight, water proof container. In it are survival

supplies for a family of ten. Each box contains a tent; blankets; insulated ground sheets; a water purification system; tool kit, wood burning or multi-fuel stove that burns diesel to oil paint; cooking and eating utensils; children’s packs with drawing books, crayons and pens; and other items as required by the specifics of the area, such as mosquito nets in areas where malaria is prevalent.

On a personal note, since January 12, I am overwhelmed at the generosity of the Rotarians in District 6290. The question has never been “Should we help?” The question has been “How can we help?” The Shelter Box initiative is only one of the ways Rotarians are responding to the crisis in Haiti. Others are concentrating on water filters, others on shoes, and the list goes on. All of this reinforces my belief that there are more people in the world who want to do good than bad. There are more people in the world who reach out to help others than turn their backs. There are more people in the world who strive to make the world a better place for everyone than to destroy what others have.

For more information on Shelter Boxes, go to http://www.shelterboxusa.org/ Take the time to browse around the website and watch some of the videos that are available.

Shelter Box Initiative

District 6290 Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 8

Article written by DGN Jane Millar

http://www.shelterboxusa.org/

The RI Assembly reveals the outstanding internationality of Rotary as 530 District Governors Elect representing nearly two hundred Countries assemble under one roof for six days to learn and work together. The Object of Rotary was truly accomplished during this week. “The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

• FIRST. The development of ac-quaintance as an opportunity for service;

• SECOND. High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and dignifying each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;

• THIRD. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;

• FOURTH. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.”

The week started by having Flags from nearly 200 countries presented on stage to an audience of over 1500 Rotarians. The week continued with sessions being presented in many different languages which necessitated the use of simulta-neous translation offered through portable head sets for each participant.

District Governor Elect Tim Knaggs shares his thoughts and experience of the Rotary International Assembly-January 18-24, 2010 San Diego, CA


DGE Tim Knaggs and wife Sue with RI President Elect Ray Klinginsmith and wife Judy

Flags being presented

RI President Elect Ray Klinginsmith unveiled the 2010-2011 Rotary year theme,

“BUILDING COMMUNITIES BRIDGING CONTINETS.” President Elect Ray wants to emphasize six areas of service during this coming Rotary year:

• Peace and conflict prevention/resolution

• Disease prevention and treatment

• Water and sanitation

• Maternal and child health

• Basic education and literacy

• Economic and community development

The Presidential Citation for 2010-2011 has four Ave-nues of Service as the main categories requesting clubs to show activities in each, Club Service, Vocational Service, Community Service, and International Service. President Elect Ray also made the point that he wants RI and Districts to provide support to clubs to help them become “Bigger, Better, and Bolder” in 2010-2011.

This entire assembly was unbelievable and jam packed with information, motivation, and experiences that will never be forgotten.

I hope that I can take my excitement for the 2010-2011 Rotary year and make it contagious throughout

District 6290 and help make the Clubs in our District “Bigger, Better and Bolder.”

District Governor Elect Tim Knaggs shares his thoughts, continued


DGE Tim and Rolf Sender D1800 Germany our GSE partner 2010-2011

DGE Tim and wife Sue with Past RI President Frank Devlyn (Mexico) and wife Gloria Rita

DGE Tim with Past RI President Cliff Dochterman

Phone: 616‐935‐9559 Fax: 616‐935‐9564

Rotary International District 6290 214 S. Beacon Blvd. Grand Haven, MI 49417 [email protected]

Visit us on the web! www.ridistrict6290.org


http://www.ridistrict6290.org

Submitted by PDG Chris Etienne

At the International Assembly in San Diego in January, Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair-elect Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar said, “Polio eradication has been, is, and will remain our top priority until the job is done. It started as a 3-H national immunization program in the Philippines in the late 1970s. It became so successful that Rotary decided to approach the World Health As-sembly in Geneva, Switzerland, an annual gathering of health entities from all countries of the world. In 1988, immediately following the announcement of the success of our PolioPlus fundraising campaign, the 166 member states of the World Health Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution to stop the transmission of the wild poliovirus – our Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched.”

Rotary clubs worldwide are continuing their efforts to support our polio eradication initiative. With the generous and amazing support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we have been able to step up our efforts to eliminate this disease. Their $355 million challenge grant to Rotary requires that Rotarians raise a $200 million match by June 30, 2012. As of December, 2009, Rotarians have raised approximately $107 million toward our $200 million goal. We are well underway, but we need the support of every Rotary club and every Rotarian to reach our goal. Rotary clubs are creating new and dif-ferent fundraising activities to raise money for polio and create awareness in their communities. Some ex-amples include a car raffle, skip a meal and donate the meal funds to polio, bike-a-thon such as “pedaling for polio”, walk-a-thon or running race, white elephant auction, collect pennies for polio and a wine tasting, just to name a few. With the support of $2,000 from each Rotary club world-wide for the next two years, we will meet our fundraising goal.

Thank you to the clubs who have donated to the polio chal-lenge. As of January 31, 2010, the following Rotary clubs in District 6290 have made donations to polio during the 2009-2010 Rotary year: Bellaire, Benzie Sunrise, Boyne City, Cadillac, Charlevoix, East Jordan, Elk Rapids, Frank-fort, Grand Haven, Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids North, Holland, Holland AM, Lowell, Manton, Montague-Whitehall, Petoskey, Ste. Marie – MI, Sparta, Traverse Bay Twilight, Traverse City, Wawa, Zeeland. Many thanks to these Rotarians for their support of our Polio Challenge. Let’s keep up the work so that we can meet our goal – our promise to the children of the world for a polio-free world!

End Polio Now!


Phone: 616‐935‐9559 Fax: 616‐935‐9564



Rotary Club of East Jordan club president Jim Slough presents a $2000 check on behalf of the club to Polio Chair PDG Chris Etienne



Canadian Weekend with Rotary Youth Exchange


34 inbound foreign exchange students from 24 countries, along with 33 Michigan and Ontario high school students, converged on Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario for the annual four day winter con-ference of District 6290’s Youth Exchange Program. The Feb-ruary conference always takes place in Canada, and is spon-sored by the Canadian clubs in the district. Hosting families open their homes and hearts to the students for the three nights they stay for the conference.

The

Michigan and Ontario students will become outbound ex-change students this summer. They will leave in July or Au-gust to spend their next school year abroad. The excitement reached a fever pitch Thursday at the very first evening of the conference, when, after a wonderful international meal pre-pared by Sault College, the outbound students found out which countries they would be going to.

At a conference last November, the soon to become outbound students had been interviewed and accepted by District 6290 to become exchange students. At that time they had submitted a sheet indicating their country preferences. These preferences were then matched as closely as possible to the avail-able country openings by Central States Rotary Youth Exchange, the 17 district organization to which District 6290 belongs. It was possible to place virtually all of the students in one of their top five country choices.

Rotary Youth Exchange Students

RYE Students in front of Mackinac Bridge

RYE Students showing their coveted Red Olympic Mittens

Canadian Weekend with Rotary Youth Exchange, continued


Inbound students are currently being hosted by 30 of District 6290’s Rotary Clubs. Those 30 clubs then have the option to send one or more students abroad the next year.

The remaining two days of the conference consisted of a number of work-ing sessions and fun activities. There was language orientation, with the outbound students beginning to learn the languages of the countries they will be going to from the inbound students of those countries. The

inbound students went to several schools in the area to talk about their countries. The outbound

students had sessions to find out more about how their exchange year would work.

There also was a Sault Greyhounds Junior A hockey game, at which two of our inbound students dropped the ceremonial puck to start the game. There were snowmobile rides, cross country skiing and curling, something many of the students had never done. On Saturday evening, the Marconi Club was the site for a banquet for all the students, host parents, and local Rotarians. The highlight of the evening was a per-formance of Native Canadian dances presented by dancers and drum-mers from the First Nations Reserve. There was also the traditional dance the final evening.

Everyone had a great time and both contributed and learned a lot. They were all a bit sorry to see the conference end, but will again gather in the Cadillac area in April for another get-together.

First Nation Dancers

A visit from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Rob Clark from Wawa addresses RYE students

District 6290 Rotary Youth Exchange

At the Bush Plane Museum

Water Project Trip to the Dominican Republic


Submitted by Sue Bodenner

Feb 5, 2010 was the 15th trip of Rotarians into Puerto Plata for 7 days of 'learning' and 'doing' in the northern part of the Dominican Republic. Saturday morning our tour bus headed for Santiago with 60 Rotarians from Rotary Districts 6290, 6360 (Canada/Michigan), 6310(Michigan), 6380 (Canada/Michigan), 7370(Pennsylvania), 6510 (Illinois) and 7980 (CT). Warmly greeted by Rotarians from clubs in and around Santiago, DR we were split into a variety of groups and spent the day seeing club projects related to water, hunger, literacy, agriculture etc. In the evening each hosting Rotary club had a special meeting and/or entertainment prepared for the visiting guests. Sunday morning many stories were being shared of the Rotary family host experience in Rotary homes, their projects and passion for Rotary work. It was a great start to the Project Fair that had been prepared by 13 different Dominican clubs. One part of our group spontaneously supported buying the first home for a special four-home retirement community...$1400 tossed into the bucket of the Rotary Club of Gurabito. The energy was elec-tric and many projects presented by the Dominican Rotarians were being seriously considered by the visiting Ro-tarians. We returned to the resort, Riu Merengue, and had the opportunity to hear two Central Michigan Univer-sity graduate students describe the work that CMU is doing and their role in bringing safe water to India and other places.

Monday through Wednesday each traveler had the opportunity to see a HydrAid BioSand Filter installed. And four Rotarians from Rotary District 6440 (Illinois) were able to join us. All visiting Rotarians were able to be in family homes and observe the in-structions prepared for the family and participate in the dialogue around the installation process of the HydrAid BSF. This trip provided a close up opportunity for travelers to see the variety of settings where the Dominican Rotarians work...city barios, dumps, country bateys, schools, orphanages and nursing homes, the impact of bad water and sanitation and the many barriers that families and Rotary clubs encounter. What does it mean when there is a heavy downpour of rain like Sunday night and Monday morning? What does it mean when a family of 8 spends $2-3

USD each week to have safe drinking water?

Monday evening, Faith Apol, Grandville Rotary Club, shared with the group, her personal journey of the past three years since her first time on this trip. Following that first trip with husband Dan Verstraet, Faith joined Rotary and began exploring how her church and her club could be supportive of projects in the poorest bario of Puerto Plata. She recently spent six weeks living day to day with the residents of Agua Negras and had many insights to share.

Tuesday morning was very special for Lowell and Rockford Ro-tarians because they got to make and serve breakfast for the chil-

dren of The Light at the End of the Road School. This is a program both clubs, among others, have supported for five years and was the idea of Debbie Banks on her first trip. It has made a tremendous difference to the young children. Principal, Sondra Tineo, told us that in a recent health evaluation of the children in the bario only 1-2 children were diagnosed as undernourished.

Family located in a rural community near Santiago DR

Rotarian Josefina Urena gives a shirt to Rotarian Frank Gambol that has a special logo commemorating the USAID/Rotary Foundation 3H Grant for water and sanitation in the

Dominican Republic

Water Project Trip to the Dominican Republic, continued.


Wednesday evening the entire group was hosted in the home of Rotarians, Bob and Ysabel Hildreth. This is always a high-light. Ysabel and her family and friends prepared the traditional Dominican buffet of food. On their rooftop terrace we were joined by the orphans of Casa Nazaret for dinner and dancing. A few years ago this evening of gracious hospitality turned into a fundraiser for Casa Nazaret, a very special orphanage with many financial needs. Bob and his father, Volney Hildreth challenged the group for every $1 raised, their foundation would match with $1 up to $11,000. This would give the orphanage a potential of $22,000 to meet current needs and plan for future needs. Rotarians hearts and pocketbooks opened wide and the goal was met within 15 minutes...then the challenge turned to 'Can we get to $1,000,000 pesos??" and that goal was met as well! The music and dancing with the children was so much fun that it was difficult to get the group back on the bus to return to the resort.

Another fantastic result of this trip...Pennsylvania Rotarians agreed to lead a similar trip into Santo Domingo next year. This means that February 2011 there will be a choice during the same week...travel into Santo Domingo (12-15 spaces) or travel into Puerto Plata (limited to 60 spaces). This will help the Dominican Rotarians to experience an expansion of relationships and growth of projects. BOTH groups will meet in Santiago for the 6th annual 4060 Project Fair...We hope you will consider joining one of these trips and see how a Rotary club of 12 members can move moun-tains, see a way your club can get involved, be inspired by the hospitality of all the people you will meet and come home enthusi-astic and proud to support The Rotary Foundation.

IF YOUR CLUB would like a program on this trip, please contact Sue Bodenner, Rockford Rotary at [email protected] or 616 866 2002.

Are you aware that March is literacy month in the Rotary Calendar? Have you thought about having a quite area set aside at your next family event for children to read or be read to? Has your Rotary club provided the books and an adult reader who can also supervise the area? When family members feel comfortable at a Rotary event they will be willing to share their Rotar-ian’s time with our organization.

Encouraging children to read benefits everyone

Lowell Rotarians, Jim White and Wendell Christoff demonstrate their

cooking ability

Farmers answer questions on how a cooperative greenhouse has grown new business opportunities for local men


Emily's Peace Trip Update

ears, always held the first Saturday in October. he last weekend in September and the first weekend in October, with Red Flannel Day on October 2,


Our peace scholar Emily Meyerson( pictured left ) is keeping a blog on her experi-ence in Thailand. You can visit her blog at www.emilyspeacetrip.blogspot.com. Below is her blog on Dorm Living:

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Dorm Living……..

This is Viddhaya Nives, the dorm/housing I am in. It is funny to think back to when I was eighteen

living in the dorm on North Campus. Remembering how we hung out in the hall, we did a lot of spur of the moment things, we ate dinner with different people, we came in and out of each others room to touch base, borrow things, and gossip? Remember having only a hot pot and mini-fridge and if you were lucky you had a toaster? I remember one friend of mine had a rice cooker/steamer, that was de-luxe, we could make ramen noodles in it.

Well, here I am, 23 years later doing the same thing again (see my not so exciting room below). And you know, it is sort of fun in ways. It really simplifies life. I have limited amount of things so there isn’t a lot of choice in what to eat or wear. I have no television (well there is one but it is all in Thai). I do have the internet which is nice and I could watch TV on that but have really been too busy to even consider it.

Since I am really here on such a short term basis, I can’t really spend too much time decorating. I did hang a map of Bang-kok (surprise, surprise) and a few pictures from home and I bought a cute little bedside lamp too.

But otherwise, can’t really be bothered. (Remember when we thought three months was a long time? I don’t really count this as living somewhere, it is just a long stay!)

Dorm Living, it does have its qualities (for a long stay!) Another “living” note. Food here is so cheap it is cheaper to eat out then make food, so consequently very few people eat at home. For us, we can go anywhere for dinner, the closest place is across the road at the student canteen. The canteen has seven different vendors selling various foods, drinks, snacks etc. It is very cheap, we usually eat there for under a dollar! With drinks and dessert it is maybe $1.25. We often have no idea what we are eating. It is all in Thai and you just point to things. Over time I have learned to follow the students and if it looks good ask for the same thing. It usually is tasty…...usually.

Viddhaya Nives Dorm

My Dorm Room

The Student Canteen

http://www.emilyspeacetrip.blogspot.com

CLUB NEWS

be an annual fall event for 69 years, always held the firs t Saturday


Phone: 616‐935‐9559 Fax: 616‐935‐9564



Red Flannel Festival Names Fred & Carollee Gunnell 2010 Grand Marshals

CEDAR SPRINGS, Mich., Feb. 6, 2010— The Red flannel Festival Board of Directors proudly named Cedar Springs residents Fred and Carollee Gunnell as the 2010 Grand Marshal for the 71st Annual Celebration, to be held on Saturday, October 2, 2010.

“The Festival is extremely proud and thankful for the many years of out-standing dedication of both Fred and Carollee to the entire Cedar Springs community,” said Michele Tracy Andres, President of the Festival. “Their fabu-lous community service in several organizations, and their strong support of the Festival are very impressive and just what we look for in a Red Flannel Grand Marshal. It’s very obvious Fred and Carollee love Cedar Springs and the Red Flannel Festival!”

Fred has been a prominent leader in the community, volunteering his time to several organizations on the Board of Directors, including the Cedar Springs Rotary, Historical Society, Rod & Gun Club and United Methodist Church. He is also a member of the Solon Township Board of Trustees, and serves on the Solon Township Planning Commission. Carollee is very active in the United Methodist Church Choir and served on the Cedar Springs His-torical Society Board of Directors and also on the Solon Township Board of Review. She also is a caregiver for the elderly.

Both Fred and Carollee attended Cedar Spring High School, and went on to complete their education at Michigan State University. Fred was the Director of Admission for Michigan Technological University in Houghton; Carollee was an elementary school teacher for many years in Hancock, Michigan.

To donate to the Red Flannel Festival, an independent, non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization, view the Festival’s website at www.redflannelfestival.org or mail to RFF, OO Box 43, Cedar Spring, MI 49319.

Michael Jordan Bellaire John Truxell Montague-Whitehall

Benjamin Montgomery Big Rapids Amy Pullen Traverse Bay Sunrise

John Benz Grand Rapids Carol A. Wylie Traverse Bay Twilight

Robert Dean Grand Rapids

Steven Ender Grand Rapids

Susan Ledy Grand Rapids

Mark Freeland Montague-Whitehall



District 6290 Fourth Annual Rotary Foundation Banquet

District 6290 will hold a Foundation Banquet at the Traverse City Golf & Country Club on Saturday, April 17. The event will begin with a social hour at 6:00 pm, dinner will be served at 7:00 pm, and the evening will continue with the program at 8:00 pm. We expect the festivities to end at 9:30 pm.

We are honored to have John Smarge, RI Director Elect, as our keynote speaker and urge the Rotarians of our district to attend this special event. The price for the dinner, which includes hors d’oeuvres and dessert, is $40 per person. A por-tion of each ticket price will be donated to the RI Foundation. The reservation deadline is April 10.

The RI Foundation supports many important programs worldwide, such as Groups Study Exchange, Ambassadorial Scholars, the Peace Center programs, and a large number of humanitarian matching grants.

OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER

John Smarge has been a Rotarian and resident of Naples, Florida since 1981. His classification is Moving and Storage. John and his wife Cindy are Major Donors, Bequest Society Members and Paul Harris Society Members.

John served as President of The Rotary Club of Naples in 1992-93 and as District 6960 Governor in 1995-96. He is cur-rently Rotary International Director Elect, 2010-2012.

Internationally, John has twice been a Delegate to the Council on Legislation and has served as both a Rotary Interna-tional Membership Coordinator and Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinator. He is a regular speaker around the world and has represented the President ten times at District Conferences.

John considers the most rewarding aspects of his many years in Rotary to be the opportunity to participate in the Polio-Plus National Immunization Days in India, his medical missions to Ternopil, Ukraine and his multiple humanitarian trips to the Caribbean including work in Haiti over the years.

John has received numerous awards for his Rotary Service including the Rotary Foundation Citation for Meritorious Service, the Distinguished Service Award the Rotary International Service above Self Award and was recognized in 1999 as the District 6960 Rotarian of The Decade.

John and Cindy have three daughters, Jessica 24, Stephanie 22 and Amanda 15. He is a past Board Chairman of the Naples YMCA, Boy Scouts of America and Shelter for Abused Women. John has coached girl’s basketball teams for more than 12 years. In his spare time, he is a competition auto racer.

District Foundation Chair PDG George Trowbridge: [email protected]


Upcoming Events

be an annual fall event for 69 years, always held the first Saturday in October. This year’s festival will be held the last weekend in September and the

first weekend in October, with Red Flannel Day on October 2, 2010.

country! Because of the famous “drop‐and the area’s lumbering history, a ʺRED FLANNEL DAYʺ was planned for the fall of 1939. Volunteers con‐tinue to keep the Red Flannel Festival tradition

Event:

White Lake Blarney Bash

Chair:

Ken Ber-man

Date: Mar 13, 2010 at 12:01 PM - Mar 14, 2010

at 5:00

Lo-cation:

Whitehall and Mon-tague, Michigan, 49461

Fee: Free

De-tail:

White Lake Blarney Bash March 13, 2010 all week-end long start-ing with the parade at noon Saturday. marching bands, Irish music, beer tent, events and more all weekend! Supports local Rotary and worldwide eradication of Polio. click below: BlarneyBash

Event:

White Lake Blarney Bash

Chair:

Ken Ber-man

Date: Mar 13, 2010 at 12:01 PM - Mar 14, 2010

at 5:00

Lo-cation:

Whitehall and Mon-tague, Michigan, 49461

Fee: Free

De-tail:

White Lake Blarney Bash March 13, 2010 all week-end long start-ing with the parade at noon Saturday. marching bands, Irish music, beer tent, events and more all weekend! Supports local Rotary and worldwide eradication of Polio. click below: BlarneyBash info on Face-book For infor-mation contact Ken Berman 231-981-5005 or Brian McMurray 231-


Why attend? By participating in an RI convention, you’ll gain a broader appreciation of Rotary’s global impact and strengthen your commitment to service. And Seeing a convention may move your invited guests to become Rotarians too!

2010 District Conference

May 13-16

Grand Rapids, Michigan


think

We’re on the web:

Www.ridistrict6290.org

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