District Assemby - April 9th

Assembly is the annual business meeting for our district, and a training session for specific club positions - by invitation only.

Yours truly handled the invocation and pledge after the DGE called the assembly to order. The DGE then explained the purpose of the assembly and went over the incoming R.I. President's Theme and Goals.

The District Secretary put into nomination for 2013-2014 District Governor the Rotarian that had been selected by the Nominations Committee in November. The membership validated the nomination and POOF, I was no longer low man on the ladder. Funny how little stuff like that effect you - and reminds you that time is slipping by, you need to keep busy learning and planning.

Next the proposed budget was brought forward and, after minimal discussion, approved by the membership.

The District TRF Chair made a presentation to our newest Bequest Society Member, who just happened to be the newly anointed DGND.

The balance of the business session was taken up by a branding presentation. Branding is the latest focus of Rotary administration. It has become evident our "brand" has been diluted over the years and to remain a vibrant organization we have to define our brand, our unique position if you will.

The afternoon was comprises of four breakout sessions. Club Secretaries were invited to a training session about their positions. The same held true for Club Treasurers and Public Relations Chairs. The fourth breakout was for everyone else and was listed as a "Best Practices Session". This was my baby and was a result from comments at PETS that Presidents Elect wanted more time to talk and interact with their peers. So the DGND and I guided an open forum through a number of subjects from membership to fellowship to fundraising, etc. and let the audience pass along their knowledge of what has worked, or not, in their clubs. We had an hour and a half, we ran long and we could have gone on for hours more. The feedback we received on the evaluation forms showed it was a hugely successful concept. (We later determined to add a best practices discussion for the last hour of both the TRF and Membership Seminars coming up this July.)

Funny, you work for hours and hours to pull a program like this together - it is a real team effort - and then POOF, it's over just that quickly.