April 20th Meeting

Full house this morning with almost every member present.  It's a great feeling when everyone shows up.  I suspect we all got charged up from the joint meeting yesterday.

The Ayer club has asked for our assistance in the Ducky Wucky Race coming up in May.  We're selling duck adoption tickets for their annual duck race.  No... Not real ducks but rubber duckies!  They dump thousands of sponsored wubber ducks into the Nashua River, first duck across the line wins!!  The grand prize is a dinner for two.. anywhere in the world!! This years race takes place May 7th so contact us for tickets today!  There's still time.

We're headed to LeLachuer park again this year to see the Lowell Spinners Baseball team.  This is a fun night of fellowship for the members and family.  Make your reservations early if you want to attend.  Andrea will be making the purchase in the coming weeks.  We've decided on June 28th, game start is 7:05.

Joint Club Meeting of the Merrimack Valley Clubs

The Merrimack Valley Club participated in the Merrimack Valley Rotary Club joint lunch meeting at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell, MA.  It's been a number of years since this this event was last held and the timing was perfect.  District Governor Mike Ellis was on hand as well as Past District Governer Greg Roche to speak about District 7910 as well as updates on the Rotary International strategic plan. 

Many of the regional clubs were in attendance including  Billerica, Chelmsford, Westford, Dracut, Merrimack Valley Area Club, Tewksbury and Lowell.  For many of us it's the only opportunity to see each other outside of the District Conference in June.  Over 100 Rotarians were in attendance, far exceeding Lowell Club President Mike O'Flaherty's expectations.

Mike Ellis made a pitch for the District Conference that will be held at the Holiday Inn Boxborough this June.  Rooms are still available and as always ... The House of Friendship !   Details are available at http://www.rotarty7910.org/

Richard Lewis let me know of an expanded event the Westford Club will hold this Summer.  Each year his club runs the Blues and Brews festival as their primary fundraiser.  This year they plan to expand the event to include the following day which will be designated as a family day for the town residents and Rotarians.  He promissed lots of events for the kids as well as the adults.  The event is now being held at the Nashoba Ski Area in Westford.  Check out http://www.bluesnbrews.com/ for the details.

Awesome event, excellent food and fellowship.  Great Job Lowell club!!  Thanks for taking the lead to organize the event.

District Assembly Update

We had a great night at the District 7910 Assembly last night.  It was nice catching up with familiar faces and meeting new people.  I was taken by the energy and passion these club leaders have. 

The breakout sessions were designed to get the club secretaries and treasurers rolling on their rolls that start July 1st.  In addition there were presentations on Social Media, Public Relations, The Rotary Foundation and Membership.  The organizers did a very good job this year and the change of venue from a Saturday to a Thursday was a good call.  There were right around 100 District Rotarians in attendance.

Weekly Meeting update

Small group this morning but we covered a few things before getting into fellowship.  First off was a reminder that next Tuesday is the Joint club meeting at the Tsongas Arena.  It'll be nice to see the other clubs from the Merrimack Valley again.  Mike Ellis, DG and Greg Roche, PDG will be on hand as speakers.  Don't miss out on all the fun.  The lunch is free but donations to Polio Plus are expected in favor.

Steve Kirk from the Concord Rotary Club was with us again, this time talking about the fundraising group that meets in  Lexington, MA to discuss different ways to raise cash for the clubs.  He briefly spoke of the http://www.biddingforgood.com/ website. 

Andrea and I will be heading to the District 7910 Assembly in Framingham tomorrow night to take in a few of the breakout sessions that are happening.  Another Rotary Rubber Chicken Dinner I assume.

Next weeks regular meeting will feature a guest Speaker who will present on waterfowl decoy carving.  Not a lot of these old tymers around so it should be a good take.  If you're in the area drop in for the presentation, a cup of coffee and maybe some breakfast.  We're always on the lookout for new members. 

District 7910 Assembly

This Thursday we will have our District Assembly and training session on a great number of subjects. We will have session for treasures, secretary, foundation, membership, club runner, rotary and youth, social media and public relations.This is a training and a great way to learn more about different aspects about Rotary and how to improve our skills.

We will have a Boston PR company, Elevate Communication to help us with Public Relation and will have informations about writing a good press release and contacts with the media.  The social media session will be all about face book twitter and linkin. This will be a first of many training about this subjects and this is the way most club advertising their events. This session is being lead by Brookline President Elect Laura Day.


Our membership session, we will have Kevin Hallinan of Winning Inc, a company the specialize in Sales & Leadership Development.

So please have members of your club, officers and members come to this great event at the Sheraton in Framingham.  The event will start at 5 pm with registration and dinner and the training will be from 6 pm to 9 pm .  To register or more information please go to http://www.rotary7910.org/.

Weekly update

Slight changes to the meeting this morning.  Evidently the hotel double booked the room and had to move us to accomodate another breakfast group.  Our appologies to those that showed but never found the meeting, the hotel forgot to put out a notice of the change.

The joint meeting for the clubs in the Merrimack Valley will be held at the Tsongas Arena April 19th.  The location and food have been donated for the lunch meeting.  The Lowell club asks that we make a donation in the amount we normally pay for a meal each week.  About 50% of our members will be in attendance... Awesome!!  Just a reminder, we'll still have our regularly scheduled meeting at the Radisson the next morning.  Great week to make up missed meetings if you've been absent recently. 

We briefly spoke about new members and more on project ideas for the coming year. Membership and Fundraisers are the lifeblood of any club.  Bring a friend to a  meeting, as always, we'll pay for their breakfast! 

The Global Power of Rotary

Rotarians worldwide have contributed more than $18 million for disaster relief in supplies, services, and cash.  This included $2 million from the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund, a Rotary Foundation donor advised fund that supports long-term rebuilding efforts.  The fund distributed $10,000 for a major cholera prevention effort run by Rotary District 7020.  (taken from The Rotarian magazine, April 2011)

Rotarians around the world continue to make donations, aiding and solving problems in every corner of the globe.  You can help support humanitarian efforts by becoming a member of a local club like the Merrimack Valley Rotary club.   Membership is all about the contacts you meet along the way and how you can make a difference here and abroad.  Want to learn more??  Click on the What's Rotary link in the sidebar and then join us for a meeting! 

International Projects for Rotary District 7910

Since 1997, Rotary District 7910 has contributed almost 4.5 million dollars towards International projects. The most recent projects and countries include:

• Honduras - clean water
• Guyana - Medical Training
• Pakistan - Water Buffalo
• Phillipines - Street Childrens - YES Project
• Bangladesh - Special Needs Project
• Ghana - Water Purification
• Cameroun - Village Fertilizer Project
• Peru - Cleff Pallet work through project smile
• Peru - Childrens health mobile lab project
• Uganda - Computers for a technology center
• Nicaragua - Emergency medical training institute
• Haiti - Technology center for 3 schools
• Nigeria - Solar power water project
• Nepal - Early childhood education & School project
• Haiti - 11 seat landcruiser for the St. Joseph school for boys
• Zambia - Computer training program
• India - Deep well drilling for drinking water for orphanage
• Guatemala - Establish a neonatal/pediatric Gemini training Institute
• Kosovo - Medical project
• India - School bus project
• Haiti - Restoring a fishing industry in Carrefour

 Our district is doing so much to help the needy and victims of natural disasters around the world.  If you're not a Rotarian, maybe you should think about becoming a member.  There's still so much work to be done.  We need you!