Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our weekly celebration of service. Once again, a very lively
crowd in here. My name is Tracy Yovanovich, and I'm honored to serve as your president. Please silence
your electronic devices. And in honor of Columbus and Indigenous Day, please stand for the Pledge of
Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
which it stands, one nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, thank you. And with that, if you could put
the slides up. In the spirit of where in the world is Rotary, we will continue. And today I selected
Maputo Mozambique. I don't know if you all read in the magazine. It was the first page, I think, first
two pages. It has a highlight on Maputo.
And the reason I picked this is because we went there as part of our cruise and it's a beautiful country.
It's on the ocean and it has the most interesting flag. As you can see here, it is the only flag and
I have to get my notes here because I researched this. So there's a lovely article in the Rotary magazine,
but I'm going to talk about the flag because it's so bizarre to me. So.
The AK-47 with a bayonet attached is the only national flag that features a modern firearm. So we pull
into this country and here I see this flag. I'm like, are we supposed to be here? But the scenery is
beautiful. The people are lovely. The spice market and fruit market, everything was fabulous, but I
could not get over the flag. So when I saw it in the rotary magazine, I said, okay, I'm going to figure
out what's going on here.
The gun is not mentioned in the Constitution, but all other aspects of the flag are clearly defined
in their Constitution. It is to this day a controversial topic within the country, as some believe it
is viewed as an allusion to violence. Can you imagine? Mozambique gained independence in 1974 from Portugal,
and the Mozambique Liberation Front supporters argued that the AK-47 is a symbol of the Mozambican people's
determination to protect their country.
So that's kind of the argument. Some people believe it shows that they protect. Others don't agree.
They actually voted on it in 2005, and the change was rejected. Parliament critique given was, as a
peaceful country, you can't have a flag with a gun on it. For children growing up now in peace, they
see a flag with a gun on it, and it doesn't make sense. So I just thought that was interesting.
And again, it's a great big world. Rotary is everywhere.
Why, Alon, please, on the mic, on the mic. Oh, he's pointing out South Africa, where he is from. Birthplace
of Alon. So there you go. It doesn't get any better. And with that, Randy Saunders, if you could come
up and give the reflection.
If only I'd known I'd have to follow a flag with a gun on it, I would have come up with a different
topic today. Okay, I'd like to share a reflection about my favorite time of the year. Autumn is the
cool transition season between summer and winter and begins with the autumn equinox in late September.
So we're there. So why do seasons change? Well, the Earth's tilt, the Earth's predominantly tilted axis
as it orbits the sun causes different hemispheres to receive varying amounts of sunlight throughout the year.
So this time of year during the fall equinox, we start out with equal day and night light. And then,
of course, as the season moves further towards winter, it becomes where we have more darkness than we
do daylight, which means shorter days, cooler temperatures. So what else happens in autumn, scientifically
speaking? Leaf colors change. Trees stop producing chlorophyll, allowing hidden pigments like cardanoids,
which are yellow and orange, and anthocyanins, which are red and purple,
show. I gotta tell you in my second fall here from California, I'm really loving the fall color season.
You don't get a lot of fall colors in California. The leaves fall, and I didn't know this, but trees
shed their leaves to conserve water during the cold months ahead. I learned something every day, right?
Animal behavior. Many animals gather and store food while others prepare to hibernate or migrate to
warmer climates. And of course, it's a harvest time.
Farmers are gathering crops like pumpkins, apples, and squash. And of course, we have our fall foliage
peak going into late October, especially around Brown County and locally for us. Each season carries
themes that are significant to the cycles of our lives. Spring typically represents rebirth, new beginnings,
and hope. Summer represents abundance, joy, high energy, and a peak of production, where the autumn
symbolizes transition, harvest,
gratitude, and preparation for a quieter time. And then winter means rest, silence, introspection, and
a necessary pause before a new cycle starts. Seasons remind us that change is constant and that nothing
stays the same forever. Seasons also show us the harmony between light and dark, warmth and cold, activity
and rest. I think of autumn as a refreshing time of the year. The cool mornings are a nice change from
the humid and hot summer days.
It's also, I've learned from Indiana now, when I say you're here, it's also a multi-clothing plan. When
you leave in the morning and it's 50, you need a jacket, it gets 75 in the day, and then of course it
gets cool in the evenings too. Something you guys already knew a lot about, but I'm learning that myself.
Once the leaves fall off trees, the forest has a totally different look. You can see more of what's
around you. Animals are fattening up for the winter. Birds are migrating. There's a lot of activity
happening as nature prepares for dormant time.
So, go take a walk in the woods or country drive and experience the busyness of autumn while you can.
It's going to be winter soon. Thank you. Thank you, Randy. That was great. I would just suggest that
now that you know, when you get four years, you'll know that it's also the sign of the rutting season
for deer and you drive with care. And with that, I'll invite Hank to introduce our guest.
I'm not sure what my connection is with the rutting season, Tracy. We just have one guest with us today.
Derek Richardson, if you could stand, guest of Whitney Cordova, so everyone can welcome you. Welcome
to Bloomington Rotary. To be clear, there was no connection, but now that you mentioned. Anyway,
If you could put up the birthday sign. Oh, you went right to it. Beautiful. So our birthdays this week,
Tim Jesson on the 8th, Eric Spoonmore on the 4th. And then for anniversaries, we have Rex Hillary,
15 years, and Sarah Laughlin, 18 years. Just wanted to thank everyone who's able to attend. This is
the only picture I got. So sorry, Phil. It was you and dad and Luca.
taking a picture of the hats on the bouquet for Charlotte's service. But Kim's service and Charlotte's
service were both really lovely. And I know a lot of people in this room help support that. So thank
you for that. All right. So for announcements, we have lots and lots of announcements. So bear with
me. The next Rotary Book Club will be Wednesday the 21st. It's moved back a week. So put that in your
calendars, please. The Rotary Toast on your table. There are flyers. I need everyone with those flyers
gone. You need to pass them out.
And get more. We need more attendees for the toast. So help support that. I please grab the flyers.
I put them on the table because nobody took any last week. So that's the power of suggestion there.
Holiday party. We've talked about tickets are on sale. So let us know. Remind me, Jill. How are we?
That's right, thank you. There is a link in the roundabout, so just click on the link and you can do
your tickets. Futurecast is coming up November 13th, Friday the 13th. Our partnership with Ivy Tech,
$25 for Rotarians. It will be on Friday. Typically we've had them on Tuesdays, so it's been a rotary
meeting. This year it is on a Friday. It's a great opportunity to learn what's happening in the economy,
locally, state, etc. I'm going to be really curious, especially given all the
Increased traffic we've had as a result of the football championship to see if that's made place to
see with all the cuts, you know, federally and state. So I think there's going to be a lively topic,
not to mention the oil prices, et cetera. So there's a lot for them to talk about. We also need a membership
committee chair. So if anybody is interested in that, I've done it for a few years. I'm happy to work
with someone. But Lori's got too much on her plate right now and needs to step down. So if you could
see me, if you would be interested in that.
Uh oh, I went too fast. All right, one more announcement. Two more announcements. Right before I came
here, I found out, thank you Jim Bright, that Craig Spence had a stroke last week, and he is going to
be going through about four weeks of recovery. He's still not able to walk. Martha will be sending him
a card. He doesn't have a phone number in DAC, so if you would like to mail him a note, he does have
an address in DAC, and of course, Ignite,
is easy to access and get that address from. So the second thing that I wanted to share is Beacon has
their annual holiday bash coming up on the 30th at the Woolery Mill. Tickets are available there. So
please are available at, where are they available? At beaconcash.com?
BeaconBash.com, there we go. So I was like, it's not on here. BeaconBash.com, so help support that.
And I would like to invite our fabulous finance treasurer, Mark Peterson, with some exciting news here.
Rick's outside the window. Came to the meeting today with the idea that
I needed 90 seconds to talk about something. And I was talking to Tracy and she said, well, I have a
slide for you already. And I hadn't even mentioned it to her. So we're right on the same page. I haven't
looked at this slide, but I'm pretty sure I know what it says. The bills are out. And one thing I meant
to mention to you when I was up here a couple of weeks ago is for those of you who are not email people,
and even those of you that are, one way to avoid the congestion of email is to use the Ignite app.
You don't have to have an email. You don't have to look and say, when did that guy send me that thing?
You just open your Ignite app, you hit the easy pay button, up comes your bill. Now you don't see all
the detail. If you want to see all the detail, then you got to see me or Jill, or we'll help you out
whatever we can. But you see the amount, you can pay it right online. You can do it just the way you
do any other way, or you can write a check and give it to Jill.
But the Ignite app is really a great way to go with this. So that's really all I wanted to say about
that. Was there more up there? It's working? Oh, yeah. So I'm going to drill in a little bit just in
the spirit of making my point and being annoying. Here is the email that Mark sent. So it says, oh,
click here to pay online. You could do that. But I clicked on my phone to go into DAC. And I clicked
in the pay.
button. And this is what came up. And guess what? I could click here to process with my credit card.
So I did. And I immediately got the receipt. It was like two seconds. It was amazing. So I once again,
highly encourage everyone and Mark job well done.
We're a little slide heavy today, so I apologize for that. So we got a lovely note from the Community
Kitchen for our project that we did. She said, our fridges and freezer are full with a variety of hard
to get at food pantry items, eggs, ground beef, et cetera. So we got a note. Meals on Wheels,
I'm so sorry. Community Kitchen's the other one we did this weekend. So Meals on Wheels and the bags
that we bought for them have really, really helped out. So thank you, everyone. And again, that goes
towards our
one of our top goals. So appreciate to help with food security that's needed out there. Then we had
Community Kitchen. And thank you to all of those who came this week. And it was a lot of fun and we
overachieved. It was going to take two hours and we did it an hour and a half, not that we're competitive.
But the thing that was interesting to me on this was that they had last year, this time of year. So
every year teachers identify kids who need help
backpack buddies. This is for lunches over the weekend. A lot of kids get their meals and nutrients
during the school days from the schools. And so when the weekends come, they're without. So backpack
buddies sponsors that. Well, this time last year they were running about 300 backpack buddies needed
every weekend. This year it's 550. So
Again, this goes back to food security with all the scab cuts, the budget cuts, and the high prices.
It's really creating a lot of pressure out there. So the work that was done this weekend was amazing.
And there's some happy faces there. And by the way, we got to see Shams. Thank you to Sarah's not here,
but thank you. She brought Shams. And it was so wonderful to see one of the Muhammadis, the families
that we've supported. And he's driving for Uber and doing fantastic. And his little nephew is doing well.
That was amazing. Okay. So then I thought, you know, as I said, it's very slight heavy. How do we get
people to sign up for the activities? We were all used to Natalie pushing out, sign up, sign up. We're
not going, I'm holding myself back from asking Jill to push out. We need to look at the roundabout.
There are links for the signups. What you will see is the roundabout here on the right. You just look
down here and it says,
You know the activities that are there save the date under save the date you go in there. There's a
little blue link. You can see it in the middle there and then what pops up is on the left the regular
sign up genius so we can go and sign up for the activities. So we need to get in the habit of looking
at the roundabout because we need your help and your support and I don't want Jill spending time pushing
out to you. Okay. All right. And with that I am going to do or I'm not.
Michael is happy dollars. We should have some happy dollars. And it's for teachers warehouse,
by the way. I'll do 20 happy dollars because my stepbrother got married over the weekend and it was
a beautiful wedding with 200 family members. It was so many family members. So it was really enjoyable.
That's great. Other happy dollars out there.
Lynn's happy because the Yankees lost. I don't know why I'm happy. I am happy. This month is going to
be really fun. I'm going to my 50th high school reunion, and I never go back there. So that's kind of
exciting. And my partner got his first convertible in his whole life, which I couldn't even believe.
But he now has a convertible. There's some money.
I too have a 50th, but it's my college reunion. So you can see how much older I am than Lynn Schwartzberg.
And it's this weekend, I'm going to Colorado Springs, Colorado to the Colorado College 50th. Can't wait.
And I'll give 50, but I don't have it on me, Jill. 50. So I'll give whatever money was in my wallet.
I don't know how much that is.
It's my bottom dollar. How about that? No, I'm just really thrilled. My wife, Liz, I mentioned that
she's doing the Camino trail. She's fit. She's well survived the first half. So she's done about 350
kilometers so far and will continue until the beginning of November. So that's pretty awesome. Yeah.
And I'll give it to happy dollars because I sat down at this table.
Didn't know I know Whitney well, but didn't know her guests Derek who happens to be from my hometown
of Virginia Beach. 1st, good thing and he told us that he is working on a PhD and how NGOs. Implement
health programs overseas and he's been in contact with rotary clubs, particularly in the.
Penan Pen in Cambodia. And this was really interesting talk to him. And once again, no rotaries impact
around the world. Awesome. I don't have cash on me, so put $10 on my bill. But I'm putting a plug in
for IU Volleyball.
doesn't get as much press as basketball or football, but they're playing Nebraska. It's the number one
ranked team this Thursday at Wilkerson Hall, and we're ranked 15th, I think, currently. Awesome. One
more back, or two more, Glenda, and then Peyton. I'm so happy to be back after nine weeks since my knee
replacement surgery, so $10.
And one more in the back. Happy dollars. I had a busy month last month. I got married and I found out
I passed the bar exam. All right. And that's it for the happy does have lots of happy people. So that's
great. Sorry, guys, we got to keep moving. So I wanted to introduce Matt Mellies, our district governor.
He was born and raised in Northwest Indiana.
married to his wife, Sarah, and lives in Georgetown, the very far southern point. He received
his undergraduate degree from DePaul University and his Master's of Business Administration from Loyola.
He is a champion of the community and loves to serve others as well as Rotary. He proudly supports his
community in many ways. He serves on the Board of Advisors for IU Southeast School of Business, the
Board of Directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters for Kentucky Anna,
and as a county councilman for Floyd County. So you're obviously busy all the time. On a more personal
note, he shares that he loves competitions. He likes to have fun and he brings a smile with him everywhere
he goes and has a deep passion for many things. Family and friends, cooking, as you know from the recipe
book, entertaining and for serving others, his community and for Rotary. And with that, I would ask
Matt to come up and then Liz will be doing the fireside chat.
I'm excited to be here with all of you. Um, I do have to get a selfie because I've get a picture with
every club I've visited. You all are my 28th club out of 30. So let's get a quick selfie here. I'm trying
to get majority of people. Everybody say rotary. Awesome. Thank you.
No, I will tell you, other than the costume, which is my professional attire for, I wear a suit every
day, but I'm really a very casual person. So I just have some brief remarks and then Liz and I are going
to engage in answering some of your questions, which I truly appreciate. But before we do that, I'd
like to ask you guys to consider a couple of things as I make my remarks. First of all, why are you here?
Why do you come to Rotary every week? Why do you dedicate your time, talents, and treasures to this
organization? Secondly, if I were able to go out into this community and ask your community leaders
what they think about this club, what would they say? More importantly, what do you want them to say
about your club? Third, how would you
like to create lasting impact for your club and your community this year? And finally, what can I do
and what can the district do to help support you doing that? So I always like to start my conversations
with my rotary story. And ever since I was young, my father was very active in his rotary club.
My dad is about to turn 89 next month and he is still very active in his club. I remember being young
and going out and doing service projects, but I had no idea that they were service projects. I just
saw it as having fun with my dad and my brothers out in our community, but I didn't really know what
it meant. And so rotary and service really became part of our family business. My oldest brother,
has been a Rotarian for the majority of his professional career. And so it kind of grew throughout our
family. And in my journey to me standing here in front of you today, I have had the opportunity from
around the world. And I always refer to Rotary as my Rotary family. So this year as your district governor,
I had the opportunity to create my own lapel pen, and I left several on the table up front with Jim.
But my rotary lapel pen, to my rotary family, which spans the globe, but my heart truly belongs here
in Southern Indiana, in our district 6580. As I started my year, and believe it or not, I feel like
I'm still at the very beginning of the year. I know we're three months into our rotary year,
I thought about the theme for this year, create lasting impact. Every year in March, we have the opportunity
to meet and help all of the presidents for all of our clubs in the district prepare for their year.
And so in March at president elect training, I challenged all of the presidents for our clubs to think
about how they wanted to create lasting impact in their clubs.
and in their communities. Today, I get to challenge all of you with that same thing. One of the things
that I love the most about this theme is it challenges us to think beyond the immediate moment. It asks
us to think about legacy. What are we doing within our clubs and within our communities that will outlast
all of us? What are we doing
that will be here long after we're gone. I encourage you to think about that and how you want to create
lasting impact for your club and your community this year. For me, when I thought about it and I thought
about what I wanted to help the district achieve this year, it really boiled down to one thing for me.
My goal for this Rotary year was to help all of our Rotary clubs
become even stronger than they already are. And I really believe that we can do that in three ways.
Number one, we need to do a better job of telling our stories. It's not that Rotary doesn't change lives
every day. It's that too few people know about it. For years as Rotarians, we said, listen, no, we want
to do the service, but we don't need the recognition.
my family, we need the recognition. Because once people see all of the good that we are doing in our
community, they understand our purpose. And when people understand our purpose, they want to join us.
Number two, increase our giving to the Rotary Foundation. And I don't take that request lightly.
Service requires generosity and that generosity creates opportunities. The more that we are able to
give to the Rotary Foundation, the more our district gets back and we are allowed to do more district
grants. So if you didn't know, approximately 50 percent, it's actually 48 percent, of the dollars that
we donate to the Rotary Foundation
come back to the district in three years and we use those funds to sponsor district grants throughout
our district. I am pleased to tell you that this year we had more district grant requests than we ever
have before. However, we didn't have the funds to fully fund every district grant. I would love to see
us continue to grow that pool of money through our donations through the Rotary Foundation.
Third, I would love to see us grow our Rotary family. Membership matters, and it matters because the
more members that we are able to add to Rotary means the more hands that we have to get all of our project
done. It means more thought leaders within our clubs and within our communities. When we grow our Rotary family,
we grow our connection to the world. Before Liz and I get into some Q&A here, I always want to talk
and finish up by talking about the district a little bit. You fortunately or unfortunately get to see
the district governor once a year, and it's a great thrill of mine to be able to go and visit all of
our clubs. But as I've gone around through our district, every club is unique.
Every club is different. Each club has its own cultures and traditions and how they do things.
But to me, Rotary and my Rotary family is about our connections. Because Rotary was never meant to stop
at the club level. Rotary is about those connections and I have encouraged every Rotarian as I travel across
our great state in Southern Indiana, to get out and connect or reconnect with other Rotarians in our
district. You all do a fantastic project with The Toast and all of the clubs here in Bloomington. But
there are a lot of other Rotarians that I'm sure that you all know. It's great seeing the brights here.
It's fantastic that I have Jeffrey Berger. Jeffrey is the AG for this area, so the assistant.
Alon is actually district governor nominee. And so I joked earlier that I actually have nine more months
to give him a hard time and then he'll turn over and become my boss. But I encourage everybody to get
out and connect because those connections matter. It matters from the individual member to their club,
to our district, and ultimately a worldwide network.
of people who are united by service. One last comment before I let Liz come up and grill me. One of
the things that I really hope that you would consider is joining me in our district conference this
year as a way to connect. So every year we do a district conference. The past couple of years, they've
been multi-district district conferences, but there were a couple of things that I wanted to accomplish
with our district conference this year.
Number one, I wanted it to be centrally located for all of the Rotarians within our district. So district
conference this year will be April 9th and 10th of 2027. It will be in Clarksville, Indiana, which is
in the middle of our state. I also wanted it to be as affordable and approachable as possible for everybody.
So we have negotiated a fantastic room rate. We're staying at a Radisson hotel. Room rates are $75 a night.
Early registration is going to start in December and early registration will be $99 and that cost really
only covers the food. We are bringing in several fantastic keynote speakers from around Rotary and Rotary
International. I'm very excited about who we're putting together.
We're also structuring our breakout sessions a little differently. I wanted them to be facilitated
discussions on how we can advance our clubs and the district and ultimately make Rotary a stronger place.
We're going to do some things like on Friday night, we're actually going to all get together and have
a meal together, kind of family reunion style. We're going to bring in some live music. We're going
to have some games, but as one,
veteran rotarian told me rotary used to be around about gathering around the table and sharing ideas.
So we're definitely going to start conference with that. And then we're also going to do some service
projects as well because as rotarians, we all love to get our hands dirty and get involved. So as more
information comes out about district conference, I really encourage you to consider joining me April
9th and 10th in Clarksville for our district conference. So with that,
Let the grilling begin. I love this part. If you guys are able to keep me in this seat. That would be
a success. We good to go. No, it's I'm good.
All right. Thank you. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate having you here.
And you know, you, you've said three months in so far, you've been traveling around what 28 clubs you
said. So how's that been going and what lessons have you learned so far? Oh, great question. Um,
it's fun. Um, you know, I will tell you, and I, and I am serious about this and I tell everyone when
I meet them so far to date, my best rotary experience has been being president of my club.
I will tell you, this has been a very fun and exciting journey. I love being able to travel around to
the clubs. I love being able to work with our district leadership. I had the opportunity and I've requested
a meeting with all of our clubs with their board either before or after the meetings. And I shared with
your board this morning that the district is really here as a support function. I don't have a job.
unless I am supporting the Rotarians of our district. And so for anything that your club or you might
want to accomplish within Rotary, we have members at the district level to help support you in those
endeavors. So we have a very, very good group of people. As I mentioned, Jeffrey's here with me today.
He primarily functions as my security, getting me in and out of facilities and everything. But no, Jeffrey is,
a long rotarian with a lot of experience, but your first point of contact. But I love telling everybody
that I am very accessible. You can reach me through a phone number or a phone call and email. And that's
one of the things that Liz, I really enjoy about this job is actually being able to talk to and work
with all the rotarians in our district. Great. Good to hear. So what can a district governor reasonably
plan to accomplish in a year. It sounds like you've got a lot of priorities. So what's realistic? What
do you think is realistic to get done? Yeah, you know, it's one of the things that I keep talking with
Alon about is coming into being district governor, you have all of these great ideas and it's a three-year
training process. And the way that Rotary trains individuals to be district governor is phenomenal.
The hierarchy, if you will, of Rotary is everything starts with the club. A club rolls up to a district
and then multiple districts roll up into zones. So within our area, we are two paired zones, which are
represented by 31 different districts. So for the past three years, I've been going through training
with 31 of my peers. And every time we get together,
We all have wonderful ideas and you kind of sit there and go, Oh, maybe I want to do that. And maybe
I want to do that. And it wasn't until March of this year, I wasn't district governor yet. And I was
like, I have got to stop this because my list of what I want to do is getting way too long. Um, the
preparation for district governor and, and what a district governor can really, um, accomplish happens
within those three years. I mean,
Right now, three months into this year, and I'm still doing club visits and I'm loving it. But working
with the whole district leadership team on how we grow our district, how we add clubs, how we raise
more for the Rotary Foundation is really where I'm spending my time focusing on the remainder of this
year. So you mentioned one of your goals was to help increase our donations to Rotary Internet.
Rotary International. And we've had a couple questions come from club members about the costs that continue
to increase for everybody, whether it's groceries or other things. And so are we potentially putting
ourselves in the position of becoming a more elite type of club to be a part of? We know that some of
our younger members have stopped coming or had to drop off just due to
their own personal costs of running a family and a household. So what advice do you give to clubs to
try to encourage more different types of diverse members to join, especially if costs are a factor?
Absolutely. No, that's a great question. And it's one that Jeffrey knows I love to talk about because
he sits out in the audience and asks me these pointed questions because he knows where I'm going.
Cost is a concern for everybody. To me, it doesn't matter where you are or where your position in life
is, whether you're working, retired, unemployed, cost is always an issue for everybody. My philosophy
is that I believe in offering a version of Rotary to everyone, no matter where they are. I wanna say
that again, because to me, this is really important. I believe in offering a version of Rotary
for everyone no matter where they are. And what that might mean is that not everyone can break away
at noon in the middle of the week to join a Rotary meeting. There are some individuals that might not
because of their profession, they might not because of costs be able to do that. That doesn't mean that
a traditional noon meeting needs to go away. It just means that
Are there other alternatives that we can offer individuals? I think Bloomington is a great example of
this. Bloomington has a morning club. They have a noon club. They have two noon clubs, but now they
have a family version where we're offering Rotary to family members that couldn't break away in the
middle of the day. Is there an opportunity for an evening version of Rotary?
for other professions that might not be able to come for breakfast or come in the middle of the day.
I believe that's how we truly grow Rotary is by offering Rotary where potential Rotarians are. We don't
need to change the soup recipe that we already have with the clubs that we already have. But is there
an alternative that we can add for Rotarians who can't make
the current formats of our meetings. There are several rotary clubs across the US and the world that
do online rotary. I know a couple people that live within our district that actually belong to a California
club and they meet via zoom and they still do service projects and they are still rotarians. So to me,
it's all about being thoughtful about offering rotary in a different way to more people. Thank you.
And, you know, as we're thinking about our pipeline, our membership pipeline, we can't forget about
Rotaract and how important it is to bring in younger people and get them thinking, you know, of the
Service Above Self model at a young age. What do you see around our district in terms of Rotaract and
engagement of younger people? Yeah, I love the whole youth portion of Rotary.
When I was young, I can remember at least five exchange students that came through our house as part
of Rotary. It was something that my dad was very passionate about. And Rotary youth programs are still
alive and well. They got a lot of hit during the pandemic. We still have exchange students.
Unfortunately, this year we don't have an inbound or outbound student from our district, but we're working
on an outbound student for next year. I will tell you that our interact clubs, in my opinion, across
our district are thriving. We have a lot of high school based interact clubs and they do very well and
they're very engaged in our community. I will tell you sitting here right now that we only have three
Rotorat clubs.
and one of which is talking about surrendering their charter. I'm also encouraged because I know that
IU Southeast is actually working on reactivating their charter. But to me, engaging and involving our
youth in Rotary is more important than ever. And I don't say that that the youth is a solution to any
of our future problems, but
Youth today are much more engaged in service and volunteerism than they were when I was growing up.
And regardless of why they are engaged in it, all of those high school interact students need service
in order to go on in academia and go on to universities. University-based Rotaract clubs need that service
to demonstrate to employers
that they understand the impact of their role within a corporate job on our communities. So I believe
that there is a quite a bit of potential between interact, rotor act, and, and then actually making
sure that we collect those rotor actors as Rotarians within our clubs. But that goes back to my previous
point of we need to be able to offer a version of rotary for everybody where they're at.
So we know that a lot of young people are really interested in mentorships and whether that's formal
or informal and certainly Rotary provides a wealth of individuals who have a lot of career experience,
life experience and a lot of knowledge to share and are willing to do so. Do you see any programs in
Rotary where there's maybe perhaps a more formal mentorship program or how do you see that working for
us as a pipeline?
These are great questions, by the way. These are awesome. I love these questions. There are so many
opportunities for development within Rotary. I remember when I started with my club in New Albany. If
you go back to my introduction, I'm not from the Southern Indiana area. I grew up in Northwest Indiana.
But when I got involved, when we moved to Southern Indiana, I knew I wanted to be part of Rotary.
But I also knew that I wanted to be part of the Rotary Club of New Albany because they are some of the
most well-connected individuals within our area. Personal development, leadership development, mentoring
is still a huge part of Rotary. Think about new Rotarians that come into your club.
If you don't mentor them, if you don't ask them to be part of a committee and get them involved, they're
not really quite sure what Rotary is. And yet Rotary has so much to offer. There's online training courses
that they can take for leadership development. There's a whole network of people in this room that are
so well connected within this community that that is a valuable network that anybody, young,
middle-aged, older, somebody from California, moving here, needs that network. And that mentoring and
development is everybody's responsibility. Well, I know we've done a really great job with Bryla. We've
got Joy Harder. Ah, Joy. Yeah, so great job there, Joy, and others who've been involved with that, because
that's a really great way for us to make those connections.
Can you share any other lessons learned or best practices that you've seen in your travels around to
the different clubs across the district? Yeah, and the first thing that I would do is, you know.
praise and recognize this club for what you're doing with corporate memberships. We have individuals,
as I mentioned, at the district level that are working on helping to educate and train and develop some
of our clubs that are looking towards corporate memberships. And it sounds like you guys have a very
solid program. I know that there are clubs within our district that do a lot through fundraising that
we've been able to pair sister clubs with them when they were trying to develop and figure out what
they wanted to do as a fundraiser. So a great example of that is the Vincennes Rotary Club does a great
raffle fundraiser. And one of our Columbus, the Columbus Sunrise Clubs was looking to do something very
similar. They partnered together and there was no stealing of ideas or anything like that. It was just
two clubs.
trying to help each other grow and now the Columbus Sunrise raffle program is very successful for them
and it also has become not only a fundraiser but a way for them to actually engage potential new members.
So I think for me that answer really comes back to the connection and going out and connecting
or reconnecting with Rotarians within our district because
There are a ton of ideas and a ton of things that we can learn and share from one another. And again,
selfishly and plugging conference, that's going to be a great opportunity for that. Well, you mentioned
partnerships and I think, you know, certainly our Rotary Toast here locally is a great example of clubs
partnering to do something positive.
Do you see any examples where different clubs across the district are partnering to advance maybe one
of your goals or a district goal? And what can you tell us about that? Well, I would tell you, again,
I feel like I'm being selfish and talking about myself with this one, but I am ecstatic at the
involvement from all of our clubs and all of our rotarians with our cookbook project. So cooking is
something that I'm very passionate about. And I personally believe that cooking is a way that we connect
with one another, just like music is a way for us to connect. And when I approached my year and I was
talking to several of my colleagues, everybody was like, Hey, you love to cook. Why don't we put together
a district cookbook?
and we'll do it for food-based organizations. So thank you all for submitting your recipes. My goal
with the cookbook was 200 recipes. I will tell you, I have not heard the final count because they still
keep coming in the recipes, but we're over 400 recipes for this cookbook. Now I started this,
like I said, as a way to
raise money for us to do a district wide service project, if you will. I didn't realize that this was
the first district wide fundraiser that our district has done. So the way that the program is going
to work is we have a whole committee of people that are working on getting everything formatted. We're
going to send it off to a printer who specializes in these types of cookbooks.
And then we're going to have all of you in the club sell these cookbooks and 100% of the proceeds from
the cookbook are going to go to food based organizations. So to dive a little deeper into that, and
this is something I'm extremely proud of our district, which is represented by those 30 clubs and 1400
Rotarians.
is divided up into eight different areas. I mentioned Jeffrey's here with me today. Jeffrey is an assistant
governor for this area. We're going to take those funds and we are identifying food based organizations
in each of the eight different areas.
So the money is going to go to an organization that you all will recognize. You all have probably done
service projects for and are heavily involved in your community. So I don't know if that answers your
question, but I felt like this to me was an overwhelming response of me asking my Rotary family for help.
and something that I thought would be a fun and unique project. And by all means, it's exceeded
my expectations and we haven't even sold the cookbook yet, so. Is it too late for people to get in recipes?
If you get them in this week, I will make sure they're in the cookbook. Okay, you guys heard it here
first. All right, one more question. Absolutely. What has been your favorite part about being district
governor so far and what advice would you give to your successor in order to take on the role? Not that
we know anybody.
in the room. I will tell you without a doubt my favorite part has been meeting everybody. I'm a wallflower
if you couldn't tell so this is getting me out of my shell now. I do. I have been an active rotarian
for many years and it warms my heart every time I get to go into a new club
to meet Rotarians that I haven't met in our district, to share their experience, to hear their Rotary
stories is a huge thrill and a huge joy for me. I mentioned that you all are the 28th visit out of 30.
I was very intentional. I wanted my club visits early on so that I could go back to clubs.
whether it be for their events or if they needed help or if they needed representation. Early on,
I met with, we have a small rotary club in Sullivan, Indiana, and I walked into that club and I wasn't
really sure what I walked into because
They weren't sure about district governor. They weren't sure about the district. They had no idea what
a district grant was. And I'm sitting there for the hour scratching my head going, this can't be, I
know my predecessors had been there. Um, but they didn't understand the support of the network of our
district. So they put on this fantastic corn festival every year and they've been doing it for over 50 years.
Well, I got several other AGs and other Rotarians that are in close by proximity, and my wife, who's
not a Rotarian, but should be, and she puts up with a lot of my Rotary work, and we all went to the
Corn Festival. And it was amazing to see this club, who, when I walked in, had no idea who I was or
why I was there or why they were part of a district, light up that they had so many other Rotarians
come to their event.
So I will tell you that that has been a great joy for me. As far as advice, start now, buddy. No, Alon's
been fantastic to work with. I've known Alon for several years prior to him accepting the nominee position.
But early on when I was approached by the notion of doing this, I said, I don't know that I can.
said, I have a full-time profession. I run my own practice. I'm involved in all of these other things.
And a wonderful rotarian, whom I'm sure most of you know, who is our admin, Betty Dunham, looked at
me and said, Matt, if not now, when? And I said, OK, all right, Betty. I can't argue with that. It is
definitely a manageable job. It is a fun job. It is one.
I do get emotional from time to time, which Sarah, my wife, says is fine for people to see my emotions.
I will not be happy at the end of this year when I have to turn over to Linda, who's our district
governor-elect, because this has been fantastic. So enjoy the ride, my friend. Well, Matt, thank you
so much for being here today. Thank you. I really appreciate it. We hope you'll come back and visit
us. Absolutely. Thanks again. Let's give him a big round of applause.
Do we want to get one question? No. No online questions. Lantz is there. Joy, come on. Oh,
Lantz is here. Oh, geez. Oh, nice. Very nice. We got one from Mark. Warren, Northwest Indiana.
So I was born in Hammond, raised in Munster. My oldest brother still lives in Munster. My dad lives
in Dyer. So all in that region area. Did you ever work with steel mills? No, I did not. But I remember
the steel mills. So you aren't for a region rat. And where was your favorite meal that you've had so far?
Well, that's really, that's really challenging because I am not a lunch person. Um, I would say the,
the best was so far. I went to Columbus sunrise, which is a morning meeting. Um, and they talked online
about rolling out the red carpeting for me. And I said, don't worry about the red carpeting. Just make
sure there's coffee. Cause I was definitely a coffee drinker. So I had two cups right away when I walked
in the room. So that was, that was good. Awesome. Thank you all. Thank you very much.
Thank you for what you do. I appreciate it. All right. So if anybody had any questions as to why Liz
does community relations, you were phenomenal. You were absolutely amazing. So thank you. And thank
you, Matt, for just the candor and the straight shooting. In honor of your talk, we'll make a donation
of $100 to Shalom for this quarter. And I'd like to thank all of our volunteers, as always. Diana Hoffman
for greeting.
Hank for stepping up at the last minute for introductions of our guest. Joy Harder, our Zoom host, and
Randy Saunders. What a great reflection. Alon Barker, our reporter. Michael Schirmes, as always, the
camera and mic operator. Jonas Chang, doing photography.
Liz, our fireside chat hostess, and Jill, of course, is our executive assistant, and Tyler, our audio
tech guru. So our next meeting will be here in the Georgian Room on October 13th. Anthony Leal will
be our special guest discussing living the dream. So please join us. And with that, if you are able
to stand and please put up the slide for our four-way test of the things we think, say, or do. First,
is it the truth?
Second, is it fair to all concerned? Third, will it build goodwill and better friendships? Fourth, will
it be beneficial to all concerned? And fifth, is it fun?