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The Rotary Club of Medicine Hat was very pleased to welcome this year's District Governor, Neil Berg from the Rotary Club of Red Deer East, to our meeting today. It is an annual tradition that the District Governor visit all the clubs over the first third of the Rotary year, to deliver goals for the year and provide an update on the status of Rotary.
DG Neil was introduced by Dave Panabaker, who is the Assistant Governor this year for our area. Neil has been a Rotarian since 1988, and has a special interest in International Service, travelling overseas on various projects four times. He also is a strong believer in the value of attending the International Conference, to appreciate the breadth of the Rotary experience.
DG Neil shared his Rotary moment, attending his first District Conference. He was struck by the "internationality" of Rotary, how wide ranging and broad an impact is has.
He reiterated the priorities of Rotary, both in the District and across the world.
- Membership; Rotary needs more willing hearts, helping hands and bright minds to continue our work.
- Diversity; in gender, classification, ethnicity, across the board.
- Celebrate the centennial of the Rotary Foundation.
He spoke at some length about the history of the Rotary Foundation, and that he is challenging every Rotarian in the District to contribute at least $26.50 to the Foundation (the historical first donation from the Rotary Club of Kansas City) by Arch Klumpf. He wants the District to collectively contributed $100,000 to the Foundation this year, to average $100/member and continue the push towards 100% of the Rotarians being PHF.
He also spoke about the need to support the foundation, to continue the "End Polio Now" project. The work is not complete, as well as 19 cases of wild Polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan this year, there have recently been 2 cases in Nigeria. We need to "finish the job", which will take more hundreds of millions of dollars.
A great presentation, and Neil was thanked by President Uwe.
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