My fellow Rotarians in Rotary District 7030, my wife Maggie and I bring you greetings at the commencement of this new Rotary year. A Rotary year in which our President Holger Knaack has used as his theme “Rotary Opens Opportunities”. What a prophetic theme! The opportunities that are being opened right now through the extraordinary circumstances in which we are living are boundless. So through every challenge comes opportunities.
I would like to take this opportunity to say Thank You most sincerely to Past District Governor Trevor and the team of 2019/2020 you all have done an outstanding job and have led our District 7030 in the most extraordinary times, I cannot say thank you enough. Our team 2020-21 will build on your successes and I hope we’ll have many of our own.
In this year [2020-21] the number one challenge is retaining members. COVID-19 is going to present a major challenge to us, so let us lose no members because of COVID 19. There will be natural attrition but let us lose no members, they are our family. We are FAMILY! Rotary, Rotaract, Interact, Early Act, Rota Kids - we are family. So let us make every effort to ensure that we lose nobody because of this pandemic.
In District 7030 we have a number of opportunities that we're going to explore in the coming year, and we are going to grow rotary as President Holger has asked us to do by looking at new club models, looking at how we support rotaract to fully integrate our Rotaractors into the family of Rotary, they are members of Rotary, Let us look at an E-club, let us look at more satellite clubs, because we must recognise that Rotary has to change in order for our membership to grow.
Fellow Rotarians we will support the End Polio Now campaign. You have seen how much the infrastructure that the PolioPlus campaign has has been used in the fight against COVID-19.. We will support our communities in the COVID-19 recovery.
My friends we have an outstanding program for peace in 2020 to 2021, in addition to that we've added a new committee this year to look at diversity equity and inclusion. We will also roll out a program slightly tailored because of COVID-19 to prevent childhood obesity in our district, that scourge that is causing the proliferation of non-communicable diseases throughout the district.
So friends I thank you for your engagement to date and I thank you for your commitment to the future as we open the opportunities presented to us through Rotary; to grow Rotary, to grow ourselves. Let us have a wonderful fun year and do some awesome projects together.
God bless and Thank you.
D. Lisle Chase
District 7030 Team Leader 2020/2021