DG's January Newsletter
Time waits for no one. It seems like we just celebrated the New Year
and already it is the middle of the month.
As a result of the Tsunami disaster I have, and I am sure many others
have spent a great deal of time deciding on the most effective way to
help. I know that many individuals and perhaps some Clubs felt an overwhelming
urge to help out immediately. My sense of the disaster is that because
of the media hype and high emotions felt by many individuals there will
be an outpouring of support in the beginning and then it will dry up.
Hence, the District 5360 plan; which is quite simply to collect funds
over the next month or so and then decide on how to help, and where it
will be most effective. I am sure there will be many areas that we can
assist in and hopefully we will be effective in choosing projects that
will be beneficial to the rebuilding efforts that will be taking place.
We have already had a number of projects put forth and we will continue
to solicit your input. Every effort will be put forth to acquire matching
funds. The matching funds provided by the Canadian Government (deadline
January 11th) will be provided through CIDA and then made available through
CRCID. I have forwarded an estimate of funds raised by District 5360 to
Raju Paul, President of CRCID, to be used as a guideline for matching
funds that will be available to us. We also will be eligible on a project
basis to apply for matching funds through RI and the Wild Rose Foundation.
The end result is that we should have a substantial amount of money to
help out in this devastating disaster.
You are aware of the efforts being put forth to run a RYLA program this
May. The RYLA committee, after a great deal of thought and planning, decided
a spring camp would be the way to go. We realize this is one more event
that we are asking you to come up with additional money. We realize with
all of the Centennial events and the Tsunami disaster you must be just
about tapped out. Because of the great value the students receive from
the RYLA program it was up to us to try and give them the opportunity
for the spring program. Information has been sent out on RYLA just prior
to this message, so I wont belabor it any further.
There are many Birthday Celebrations planned throughout the District.
I am sure they will all be a great success. April 9th is the District
Birthday Celebration. An extremely hard working committee will be sending
out a registration package in the very near future. We have planned the
event to be first and foremost a celebration of Rotary's 100 years of
achievement. What a wonderful opportunity for us to share with the rest
of the community what Rotary has done and more importantly what we will
continue to do. I am inviting each and every Rotarian, their Partner and
friends to come and join Wendy and me in Celebrating Rotary's 100th Birthday.
Following closely on the heels of our Birthday is our District Conference
May 19th to 22nd at the Banff Park Lodge. As you probably already have
noted registration is already available on our Clubrunner web site. Mel
Gray our Conference Chairman has the program organized as shown on the
website. Mel has thought of everything and has planned a fun and exciting
weekend for us. The accommodation is great, the venue is great and the
program will be full of surprises. It will be a District Conference you
will not want to miss.
We now have less than six months to complete all of our programs for this
our Centennial year. So much to do and so little time. But I am confident
that all of us have made every effort possible and will continue to do
so to make this our Centennial year everything we want it to be.
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