At our August 23rd meeting, Bob Smith updated members on our Tastes & Tunes program coming up on October 1st.  At this point, Bob said that only four people have signed up for the event and requested that people sign up as soon as possible so that we can have a better idea of how to construct our events. If you haven’t purchased your tickets yet, please do it soon.

 

I spent a few minutes talking about two very important opportunities we have available to Club Members. These are Rotary Action Groups and Rotary Fellowships.  Rotary action groups are sub-groups of rotary, which any Rotarian can join.  The groups are organized around themes, for example, Water & Sanitation and there are currently 27 of these groups.  Rotary International chooses experts to chair each Action Group, and the combination of experts and the resources of Rotarians around the world, means these groups can create a significant impact on a particular issue.

 

I also explained Rotary Fellowships.  Rotary Fellowships allow you to share your hobby or vocation with fellow club members around the world.  Some Fellowships  are purely social and some have a specific goal.  One specific Rotary Fellowship is called Rotary Means Business.  This fellowship is designed to help rotary members network with each other to build their business.  I am requesting that one of our members head our project to establish a Rotary Means Business Fellowship for our Club or Area. If you are interested in helping with this project, please call me. 

 

There are currently 75 Rotary Fellowships to choose from, and they range from the Flying Rotarians, to the Skiing Rotarians, to the Wellness and Fitness Rotarians. It gives each of us the opportunity to share information about, or share participation in our hobbies or interests. I will send out more information at a later time on Action Groups, and Fellowships.

 

Our program was presented by our own Bethlehem Rotarian, Dr. Christine Nelson. Chris is the Director of Seminary Advancement at Moravian College, and spoke to us about her experience at the Rotary International Conference in Atlanta which was held in June.  Christine has been a member of our club for two years but before that she was a member of Allentown Rotary Club for six years.  She is also an ordained minister of the UCC, and a dedicated and tireless volunteer in numerous programs which seek to improve the quality of life in the Lehigh Valley. 

 

Christine had an interest about finding out more about Rotary and was greatly moved by her participation in the conference.  She gave us an inspirational run down of the significant accomplishments of Rotary over the past year and Rotary’s contribution to human progress. Christine told us that Rotary’s success in eradicating polio will enable us to move to the next major theme of ending international slavery and human trafficking.

 

 

Announcements:

 

Yours in Rotary service,