Spring is in the air. The snow is melting, the first flowers are starting to appear and soon we will be out enjoying the springtime weather. This is a time of renewal and hope. In the Rotary year, April is the Maternal and Child Health Month. There are some great videos you can share with your club, just look them up on Google. It is a great way to start a meeting with a quick video and some Rotary education.
Vaccinations are starting to happen around our District and that is a very encouraging sign. I look forward to the day when we can all gather together to share some fun and fellowship. I would encourage everyone to get the vaccination as soon as possible.
We have a lot going on in the District including:
-April 12th Life Leadership (RYLA) Applications with payment are due at the District Office or sooner!
-April 15, 17 and 18th we have an outstanding lineup for our District Conference and hope to see you there.
-April 24th is the Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Clean-up. Hope your Club is participating and including family, friends, Boy Scout Troops, colleagues. It is a great time to show what Rotary can do in your community.
This will be a lot of fun and we are going to have our District Pre-Gala event from 7:00pm and 8:00pm and then join the Zone wide event.
We want to thank the President's Elect for the time they put in during the MEGA PETS weekend. It was an inspirational event with some wonderful speakers, like Rotary International President-Elect Shekar Mehta, Rotary International President Nominee Jennifer Jones, and Rotary International Director Valarie Wafer.
It has been such a pleasure this year to be able to visit so many Clubs. I learn about what is happening around the District and it has been a joy to be able to give some ideas for fundraising, service projects, seeing Club partner up for events.
In that regard, I would challenge the Clubs to do a joint meeting. This idea was sent to me by a past District Governor and I loved it. The idea for all the Clubs that meet on Tuesday at noon to get together and have a joint meeting. Each club giving 5 minutes to highlight projects, fundraising plans, and membership concepts. We would be able to see how everyone operates. Likewise for Wednesday Clubs and Thursday Clubs. If your Club is interested please let us know we will help to make it happen and connect Clubs together and the more the merrier! I was thinking of the second or third week of June to make this happen.
I hope you and your Club are staying safe, getting vaccinated, and I look forward to your participation in the District activities. Until next month, keep drinking lemonade!
Norm Veliquette’s Year as Rotary 6290 District Governor, 1993-94
Norm Veliquette was the host DGE at the 1993 five-district Great Lakes P.E.T.S. in Grand Rapids. Five years had elapsed since Rotary began admitting women. Among 6290’s 56 presidents-elect, eight were women. Each of Norm’s P-E’s carried a big stick distributed at an early-morning work-out and health breakfast. The sticks were thick oak and maple, personally crafted by the DGE and personalized in their end-grain with a serial number unique to the P-E’s club.
Besides symbolic of authority and strength, the big sticks identified the host class of presidents-elect, who carried them proudly. Back home in their weekly meetings, some had club members “sign on” like fraternity paddles. Some used them as walking sticks after their exhausting year as president. Most treasured their sticks and years later said they always knew exactly where the big stick was. It was never just their stick. It was always their big stick. DGE Norm made the preposterous assertion to the 53 presidents-elect in attendance that he would walk on his hands at his district conference in Traverse City if the district goal of $46/member were achieved in Rotary Foundation annual giving.
The 6290 Directory that year was the first showing a picture of each club president. Veliquette had arranged in advance for a photographer to take pictures at PETS, a practice continued and adopted by other districts. Veliquette held his District Assembly in two sections, an innovation, one at The Shack, hosted by White Cloud for the south half of the district, and one hosted at White Birch Lodge by Elk Rapids for the north. Attendance doubled over previous years. Rotarians in White Cloud, a club that had been on the “watch list” for several years, were inspired at hosting a district event. They inducted 11 new members at the DG’s official visit, growing from 22 to 33, a 50% membership gain.
Muskegon Rotary Club member Mike Vogas has been a godsend to our club! Having joined just a year and a-half ago, his value to the club cannot be understated. Mike, a former instructor at Muskegon High School and Baker College teaching oral communication, operates his own business called Benchmark Productions. His experience also includes acting and producing videos for area non-profits. When he came to the club, he was instrumental in fixing our nagging audio and video glitches during in-person meetings. However, his talents really shined when COVID hit and we found ourselves “Zooming” virtual meetings. He produces and edits multi-media presentations and adds value to our virtual experiences with other features like “Digital Greeting Cards,” “Two-Minutes Talk Shows” and a year-in-review video. Without his creative and technical talents as well as his generous time, our meetings would be far less interesting, informative and impactful. Thank you, Mike, for volunteering your services for the Muskegon Rotary Club!
Roscommon Rotary Club highlights Kelly McCarthy-Tubbs an an “Unsung Hero”
Member since 2003
Club president 2008-09 year
Serves as club secretary
Grant Committee Chair
Spring Auction Committee Co-Chair
Paul Harris Fellow
Consistent attendance over 90% year after year
Kelly goes above and beyond her role as a Rotarian. Kelly currently serves as Club Secretary, a role she executes flawlessly. She handles all of the least glamorous duties such weekly attendance, maintaining Club Runner, and keeping track of club files like a boss. Kelly is an invaluable resource to the club president and board with her wealth of knowledge and organization skills. She is a key to the success of the Spring Auction fundraiser, which consistently raises over $50,000 for the Roscommon community on an annual basis. She also played an instrumental role in organizing the annual Higgins Lake Sunrise Run. Kelly is an asset to the Roscommon Rotary Club. We are very lucky to have her service. Kelly is a life-long Roscommon resident. She has worked at North Central Area Credit Union for 34 years and currently holds the position of Director of Branch Operations. When she is not serving Rotary, she spends her time with her husband, her grandchildren and her four daughters - all of whom she has inspired to be Friends of Rotary. THANK YOU, Kelly!!!
Gladwin club turns $5,000 calendar winnings into local, international projects
Your Club can be the next big winner!
The Rotary Club of Gladwin won the top $5,000 prize in the 2020 calendar raffle and fundraiser sponsored by the Rotary Club of Petoskey and is turning its winnings into supporting local and international projects. Your club could be the next big winner in 2022!
Annually, the Rotary Club of Petoskey/Petoskey Rotary Club Charities Inc. offers clubs throughout District 6290 the opportunity to participate in the calendar raffle fundraiser. Clubs can order the calendars in quantities of 25 or more for a cost of $15 per calendar. The club then sells each calendar for $25, netting $10 for their club for every calendar sold.
Each calendar has a unique number and numbers are drawn weekly by the Rotary Club of Petoskey to award winnings. Five $50 winners are awarded weekly, a $500 winner is awarded quarterly, and one top $5,000 winner is awarded at year-end, for a total of $19,950 in prizes annually.
Some clubs, like Gladwin, purchase the calendars to keep the winnings – both the $10 net for each calendar sold and the award for each time one of their calendars comes up as a winning number. “It’s an easy fundraiser for local clubs,” said Petoskey Rotarian Karen Ragland, Calendar Committee Chair. “They can sell the calendars in their community or put their club name on the calendar – either way, it’s fun to see the winners in your community.”
Ragland said that although many people use their phones as their calendars, even more still like to have a wall-hanging calendar at home or work for ease of looking up dates or noting doctor’s appointments or family activities. The raffle calendar is filled with attractive outdoor scenes from across Michigan.
Gladwin Club President Karen Moore said her members cannot wait to put the funds to great use both locally and internationally. Just a few of the areas the funds will go toward include a clean water grant in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Frankenmuth in the Dominican Republic; the Rotary Club of Croatia to help with catastrophic earthquakes and aftershocks; and locally for the Rotary Splash Park in the City of Beaverton.
Ragland invites clubs to inquire about how to make this easy and lucrative fundraiser work for their club. For more information, contact Ragland at 734.320.0424 or karenmragland@comcast.net.
CUTLINE: Posing with the $5,000 raffle calendar check from the Rotary Club of Petoskey fundraiser are Rotary Club of Gladwin representatives (from left) Rotary Youth Exchange representative Jolene Compton, Gladwin Club President Karen Moore, RYE 2019 student Sydney Compton, club member George Alward, and club Past President Yvette Keast.
The Great Lakes Watershed Cleanup initiative is an effort to focus attention to the Great Lakes and to all the great work that is being done to cleanup our lakes, streams, and waterways. Through the coordination of many associated clean up events, to be held around the week of Earth Day, our goal is to make this the single largest series of linked clean up events ever planned and held during this one period of time on the Great Lakes.
Trash, plastics and other littered items plague oceans, lakes, and rivers. This trash poses a threat to terrestrial and aquatic life, often becomes microplastics and harmful toxins, and pollutes one of the most precious and limited natural resources.
According to a report from the Rochester Institute of Technology, more than 22 million pounds of trash and plastic pollution ends up in the Great Lakes each year. Globally, each Earth Day over a billion people worldwide work together in their communities. The Great Lakes contains almost 20% of the world’s freshwater and the Great Lakes System is arguably the largest source of fresh water on the planet.
Each spring, numerous cleanup events occur in the US and Canada throughout the Great Lakes watersheds to remove accumulated debris and waste that has collected. Shopping carts, tires, furniture, trash, numerous foam cups, plastic containers and aluminum cans can be found along our waterways and greenways. These cleanup events remove thousands of pounds of garbage from the environment each year. Unfortunately, after each cleanup, this debris continues to accumulate through on-going littering and illegal dumping.
Cleanups from numerous NGOs, community groups and individual volunteers are critical to reducing the amount of garbage that collects in our watersheds each year. In order to track our success, the second goal of this effort will be to tabulate the amount of debris collected from each of the individual clean-up events. And the final and most important goal of this event will be to educate the public to the importance of protecting our waterways, to instill a sense of stewardship towards our Great Lakes.
The individual Great Lakes Watershed Cleanup events will be planned to be held between Saturday April 17th and Saturday April 24th, to coincide with the celebration of Earth Day which falls on April 22nd.
