In another first for the Rotary Club of Medicine Hat, a virtual induction of our new executive was performed on Monday June 29. A "Zoom meeting" to do inductions is certainly not the normal for our club but pretty much everything in the last four months has been usual, so this was no exception.
Margie Booyens started the meeting with a summary of the past year and a long list of "thank you's" to fellow board members and club members for all the hard work over the past 12 months. She reviewed the accomplishments of the club based on her "slogan" for the year of "Our Club harnesses diversity to strengthen the impact of Rotary Service in the community". She spoke about the great additions to the club this year, and the flexibility to embrace virtual meetings and changes to our programs. A complete list of all we've undertaken will be in the DOCUMENTS section of Clubrunner, for everyone's review. For all the positive, there have been challenges including the loss of some valuable Board members in the process. We are starting the Rotary year "leaner" but determined.
Margie spoke about the honor and pleasure of serving as President of the club. She gave special thanks to a long list of board members, executive, committee chairs and Rotarians who provided assistance and effort through the year. She encouraged all to consider making themselves available for leadership positions in the club - "it is a privilege, fun and a growth-inducing challenge."
The new Board and Executive were inducted by AG Dave Panabaker, and are as follows;
President : Mark Sorenson
Past-President: Margie Booyens
President-elect: Terry Partis
Secretary: Doug Fleming
Treasurer: Gail Halderman
Directors: Mike Christie, Melanie Harty, Glen Presley, Dave Panabaker
After the formal induction, President Mark Sorenson took the microphone and ran the balance of the meeting.
Mark spoke about the need to collect ourselves, consolidate the good things about the club and move forward together. He invited all Rotarians to be in contact with him, encouraged everyone to communicate and collaborate and think about the future. He recognizes this may be a difficult year, with fund raising changes and less folks around to do the work. But he is also confident that we can do anything we put our minds to, and the way forward is easy if we work together.
He spoke about the idea of moving venues, something that has been put on hold by COVID and that as soon as we can, he wants to start meeting in person.