From the President's Desk

Good Morning Members, Rotarians and Readers.

Tonight is our District Governors visit to this e-Club, for our younger Members this is the time when the District Governor attends in person and delivers his message to you personally. The District Governor must as one of his many responsibilities visit every club in his District and satisfy himself that all the Clubs under his leadership are meeting their obligations to Rotary International and the Community at Large.  The District Governor is the R.I. President's Representative and he brings the R.I. President's Message to you in person.

An e-Club obviously presents a different situation to the average Rotary Club on this occasion, for this visit tonight we find almost everyone is out of town, so to speak.  We will be going online somewhere from 7.15pm onwards and we do need to have as many Directors online as possible as we have a Board Meeting as part of the process. I am thinking of commencing the Board Meeting around 8pm, having consideration for any Northern USA Members who may be online and finishing on time by 9pm.

We had a Board Meeting last week and my report this week is to bring all our Members up-to-date with the outcomes of that Board Meeting.

The R.I. Standard Club Constitution has been adopted by this Club and is in the Dropbox for your perusal, along with our latest updated Rotary Club By-Laws, which we need your approval as Members of the Club for final adoption tonight. Please do read these, as we need a Quorum online tonight to complete this action.  We also then need to re-submit an application to R.I. to Incorporate this Club on your approval of our Club By-Laws as the Club did not receive R.I. Approval to Incorporate in June 2012 when it was Chartered because of the illegality of the Charter By-laws.

The Club also approved the Introduction of the Happy Dollar programme to increase Club fun and fellowship and to stimulate direct giving to the Foundation. Basically, this is very simple, when you have good news or happy events occur you tell us at a meeting, pay $1 of $5 or whatever you feel is appropriate and directly do this through the R.I. website where all donations are recorded in your name with your club.

Our Aussie Safare Project requires a new Co-ordinator and currently Ian Yarker and I will be contacting all registrants in due course to discuss this programme and progress forward hopefully with a simpler management process. It is important that we do not increase the cost of this tour and that this project covers its costs to this club. We are thinking now that we can run this tour as planned with a smaller number of participants if necessary but retain all the fun and excitement previously offered. We have set a time frame of mid-January to have this resolved.

ANNUAL ELECTIONS   - We also need to fill all positions of Directors of the Club for the 2014/2015 Rotary Year at the AGM coming up on 17th December.  We have also revised all the Directors positions in the Club and we now have the following positions as Directors for the e-Club available. These positions are President, President Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, Foundation, Youth, Community, and Membership, plus the Club can appoint up to 2 additional Directors any time during the year for special Projects.

Dianne's Literacy Programme, please make arrangements to send your Donation of the Children's book to our DGs partners Programme as soon as practical.  Dianne is collecting these books and you can read all about this project in the District Governor's Newsletter which we post on our website (www.rotaryeclubnextgen.org) monthly.

The Club Directors also agreed to support the Soldier On project, a programme that fundraises for Our Wounded Service Men and Women and currently is Supporting a Walk to Antarctica which has UK Royalty support as well.  Please read up (www.soldieron.org.au) on this project and email in your thoughts (president@rotaryeclubnextgen.org) towards a donation to this great cause.

We also have the Rotary International District Grant of US $1000 to support Community Health and Education activity projects in conjunction with the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Outback Australia to complete and we need to match this with $1000 of club funds.

Team Next Gen is our new Youth Leadership Project. We are currently trying to stimulate our youth sector of our membership and grow this to a vibrant programme where the younger members of our Community can be totally involved with projects of their choice. Directors Lauren and Ray have undertaken a role to survey these members to progress this forward.

There are more reports to come on our current projects; time permitting these will be available very soon.

Enjoy your day and lets all meet tonight,

Cheers 

Geoff