Life (and Rotary) goes on!

The Chili Open is over. If you recall we had a horrendous snowfall overnight and my thoughts on the way to Hale Farm were "will anybody show up?" The answer of course was –yes. The committee had prepared for this possibility and much of the ticket sales and registration took place before the day of the event. We lost some "walk ins", but overall we had a lot of fun and raised more money this year than last year! Many thanks go to all those who worked on the event, especially those who sold the raffle tickets, camperships, and manned the events and meetings leading up to Feb 6^th.

Bonnie Wojno has prepared an agenda that makes a lot of sense for our Club and Camp's capital campaign. We will hear more about it March 23 at our quarterly club assembly. I met with her twice during February and I know she is talking to Board members now and in March. I want everybody to do what they can for the campaign, but do want to make everybody feel welcome in our club no matter what their level of giving. This applies especially to new and (or) younger members. Keep this in mind when you are asked for your support.

Our Rotary club is fortunate to have Stew Buchannan as a member because of his service to our club, and this year he is the District Governor- elect. There is a District conference he is hosting on Mar 27 at Kent State. It is for a half day and really focuses on the key things Rotary does to continue doing the great work it does throughout the world. John Bosco, our current Governor will be at our club meeting on Mar 16 to tell us about it. Let's all get behind Stew and have good representation at the conference.

The Akron Rotary Camp will be shortly sporting a new logo! I've seen the drafts and the look is great. This work was started by a note from RI that asked us to qualify our camp logo to make sure that it was clear that the camp was an AKRON Rotary project. Our club has one of the most ambitious projects of any club I've heard of and frankly it's good to have our club name displayed prominently. You'll hear more soon.

We all know our camp services mostly children, so in a continuation of this service, on Feb 17 the Club presented a $1500 check to Abby Zalenski and "Kids Building Hope". We accumulated these funds from a couple of years worth of "happy dollars". These funds finished a $25,000 effort on the part of this group of young teenagers to complete a school in Vietnam. This presentation was at the afterhours meeting and close to 30 members were in attendance. It may have been the best of these meetings to date. Please check the website for pictures. Abby and her family were a real joy to be around.

Finally, I emailed PDG Jack Young about our commitment to host one exchange student for the coming year. There was much discussion about the responsibilities involved, but it appears that 3 or 4 potential host families are available. We do, however, need committee members and a chair for our Club's committee. Anyone interested in knowing more see me, Marcia Holcomb, or Jack Harig. Thanks for your commitment to children, especially those with special needs.

Yours in Rotary
Dan O'Connell