Our club inducted a new member last week – welcome Julie
Miller! September is New Generation
month for Rotary, and we have been doing a great job of increasing
our membership with a new generation of members!
While in England, although I never attended
a Rotary meeting, I did meet several Rotarians who were always
impeccably dressed in blue blazer. We usually stumbled on them
while navigating winding streets in search of a cathedral or
point of interest; they were always incredibly polite and most
friendly when I explained that I was from the Nevada City Rotary
Club in California – although “Nevada” and
“California” in the same sentence always threw them
for a loop. In Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare’s
birthplace) I took a picture of the Rotary plaque outside an
old building; I’m sure Shakespeare’s descendants
are Rotarians
We also met our former exchange student, Xavi Marco
Estella, his mother and brother in London and had a
wonderful time catching up. Neither his mother nor brother speaks
English so Xavi had to do quite a bit of translating, but we
could tell by their warmth that his family appreciated all that
we had done for Xavi while he was in our country. Xavi is still
in very close contact with his friends in Nevada City, and I
don’t think he is quite ‘back’ in Spain yet.
He has applied for a job teaching English to Spanish high school
students. We certainly enjoyed seeing him again and it was hard
to say goodbye again, but this time we weren’t weeping.
Our program this Thursday is Supervisor Nate Beason
giving us an update. We see him frequently at our club doing
make-ups; it will be interesting to hear his opinions on topics
of interest in our county. Please attend to hear Nate.
Shirl Mendonca, our Rotary Foundation keeper,
has encouraged all of us to give her our contributions now so
that awards will arrive in time for our Foundation Dinner on
November 8th. Vic Slaughter, our District Governor,
has given us the goal of increasing our number of Sustaining
Members by 10%. A Sustaining Member is a Rotarian who
pledges to contribute $100 to the Rotary Foundation
during each Rotary year. Rotarians can also become members of
the Paul Harris Society by pledging to contribute $1,000
each year; I’ll talk more about these two programs at
our meeting on Thursday.
