In August, President Wilkinson visited the set of Colorado and Company NBC/9News in Denver, Colorado. From left: Rotary District 5450 Governor David Beall, RI President Wilf Wilkinson, Co-host Denise Plante, District 5450 president of Denver NW SkyHigh Rotary Club Stephanie Ursini, Co-host Mark McIntosh.
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August 2007
August was a travel-filled month. I visited a variety of interesting Rotary projects and talked to many remarkable Rotarians about how they can ensure a vital future for Rotary by working on membership development.
Rotarians learned more about how to Share the Magic of Rotary through bringing in more members to their clubs when they attended my presidential membership conferences in Denver, Colorado; Vancouver, British Columbia; San Jose, California; and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
In between the conferences, I visited Rotary clubs in Boulder, Colorado; Lubbock, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and San Francisco. I attended a planning meeting for the 2008 RI Convention in Los Angeles; a multiclub meeting in Carmel, California; an interclub meeting in Ashland, Ohio; and an interdistrict Rotary Foundation banquet in Philadelphia.
Some of the fascinating Rotarians I met along the way included a group of bicycle riders from District 6660 (Ohio) who raised more than $50,000 for their international project, Medical Equipment and Supplies Abroad.
While in Vancouver, I visited a bicycle ambulance project, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Vancouver Chinatown, that offers an inexpensive alternative for transporting the sick and injured. The club worked on funding for specialized bicycles equipped with portable stretchers. The bicycles will be manufactured in Windhoek, Namibia, and distributed throughout that country. I’m continually amazed at the efforts and ingenuity of Rotarians to care for their fellow human beings.
While in Philadelphia, Joan and I visited a concentrated language encounter program that teaches English as a second language. The CLE immersion technique requires students to use English while performing everyday tasks to familiarize themselves with the meaning of words.
On 28 August, Joan and I traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, for the first of four conferences on peace and development. The conference was very successful, with more than 400 participants.
We ended the month by flying to Istanbul for another peace conference. This concluded the summer (here in the Northern Hemisphere), and I’m looking forward to the beginning of a busy autumn season for us.