RI President Wilfrid J. Wilkinson and wife, Joan, visited The Children's Center, a non-profit pediatric center in Bethany, Oklahoma. Photo courtesy of The Children's Center.
March 2008
On Saturday, 1 March, we continued our visit with the Rotary Club of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. Our first stop was the Children’s Center in Bethany, which is an extremely successful nonprofit pediatric hospital dedicated to helping children with physical and mental disabilities. The Rotary clubs of District 5750 have been strong supporters of the center, and the hospital staff and some of its principle beneficiaries have been strong supporters of Rotary.
Later, we toured the city and saw many Rotary club community projects. We also visited the memorial to the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. I was impressed with the peaceful reflecting pool that marks a devastating blow to peace.
That evening in the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, I attended a Rotary Foundation dinner with districts 5750 and 5770 to recognize Major Donors, White Hat Society members, and Paul Harris Fellows, both multiple and new. My hat goes off to district governors Martin Postic Jr. and Mary Sherman as well as Past District Governor Noel Bajat, the regional Rotary Foundation coordinator for the area.
On Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early to attend church. After that, we shared a wonderful brunch with District Governor Postic and his family before flying to Las Vegas, Nevada. Once we arrived, we were met by Past District Governor Alfred Slaggert and his wife, Mary Ann. Later, we had supper with other district leaders.
The next morning, we visited West Prep Elementary School, where we heard praise for Rotarians’ work. The public school provides an excellent education, primarily to students who come from economically depressed areas. Two years ago, it was regarded as one of the worst schools in the state, but with a new principal and assistance from both the community and Rotary, it is now considered a model of learning and discipline that helps young men and women break their families’ cycle of poverty.
After visiting the school, I met the mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman. It was my pleasure to award him Paul Harris Fellow Recognition on behalf of local Rotarians; he was genuinely surprised and honored. I also presented him with one of my Rotary Shares gifts. He, in turn, presented me with a key to the city.
That evening, nearly 300 Rotarians from Nevada held a Foundation dinner at the Gold Coast Casino. There we met polio survivor Shirley Pozzuoli, of the Rotary Club of Pomona, California, and became reacquainted with club president Lynn Maranville and his wife, Joanne, who had driven across the desert from the distant Rotary Club of Caliente, Nevada. We also recognized donors and met Interactors, Rotaractors, Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholars, and Rotary Youth Exchange students. One of the highlights was listening to the madrigal singers, who in addition to entertaining the audience with their beautiful voices, inspired my wife, Joan, and me with the singing of Canada’s national anthem, “O Canada.”
Joan and I had never visited Rotarians in District 5080 (British Columbia, Canada; Idaho, Washington, USA), but thanks to an invitation from District Governor Elizabeth Cytra, we found ourselves in the beautiful city of Spokane, Washington, on the evening of 4 March for a successful dinner focused on recognizing new club members and their spouses. We made many new friends and were impressed with the work going on in the district. We certainly look forward to our next visit, when we hope once again to meet with Rotarians such as Past District Governor Tom Halazon and his wife, Sharon.
On 5 March, it was back to Evanston to attack the pile of correspondence and e-mail that had accumulated during my absence. I also participated in a meeting about the 2008 RI Convention in Los Angeles, which involved listening to reports and discussing plans. Certainly every effort has been made by the convention committee, Host Organization Committee, and RI staff to ensure a first-class gathering.
After a quiet weekend, I had an opportunity to visit the Rotary Club of Elgin, Illinois. To my surprise, constituents from that club and several neighboring ones had raised more than $60,000 for The Rotary Foundation!
On Tuesday, 11 March, it was time for the monthly meeting with RI General Secretary Ed Futa. This was followed by planning for the next RI Board meeting, which will be held in early June.
I was off again on 13 March to participate in the presidents-elect training seminar held in Greensboro, North Carolina. As one might expect, it was a top-notch affair, offering many adjunct meetings for assistant governors and Foundation committee chairs as well as training. District Governor Bill Shillito was an excellent aide and ensured that I met a great many Rotarians. The entire program was chaired by Past District Governor Harry Brogden under the watchful eye of Past RI Director Ken Morgan.
The next trip for Joan and me was on 18 March, when we took a train from Chicago to Springfield, where we were met by several Rotarians, including Past District Governor Keith Lape and his wife, Phyllis. They drove us to Jacksonville, Illinois, to help the local club celebrate its 90th anniversary.
After a delightful lunch with many Jacksonville club members, including club president Michael Schneider, as well as RI Director Tom Branum and incoming RI Director Fred Hahn, we visited Franklin Elementary School, where Tom and I had the wonderful opportunity to present dictionaries to the third-grade students. This project was a follow-up to the club’s effort last year to provide dictionaries to all students from the fourth grade and up. They were obviously a well-received gift by the students and their teachers, and the project garnered a lot of publicity in the local media, particularly through a picture showing students reading The Four-Way Test.
Before dinner, we attended a reception for new club members and their sponsors as well as new Paul Harris Fellows. A group anniversary photo was taken that included almost all the club’s 105 members. That evening, we attended a gala dinner, where we were joined by Rotarians from many parts of Southern Illinois who had come to recognize the Jacksonville club. After the dinner, District Governor Ron Riggins hosted an informal social.
The next morning, we were on the train back to Chicago and Evanston, and we started to prepare for some of our April travels, which will include the Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland Conference in Blackpool, England.
On Easter Sunday, we went to Paris, where we received a warm greeting from Maurice Huneman, governor of District 1660, and stayed at the Hôtel Bedford, owned by a member of the Rotary Club of Paris.
On Tuesday, we learned about the excellent work of Rotary clubs in and around Paris, including those in districts 1660 and 1770, which is headed by District Governor Danielle Charvet. We also traveled to Saint-Cloud for a wonderful reunion with Past District Governor Jacques Trode and his wife, Françoise, along with their daughter, Marie Valerie, who spent 10 months living in our home in Trenton, Ontario, Canada, back in 1975.
That evening, we participated in an elegant dinner at the Hôtel Bedford with the current and past governors of districts 1660 and 1770. Included on the list of invitees were RI Director-elect Catherine Noyer-Riveau and her husband, Jean-François. The food, drink, and conversation were most stimulating and will be long remembered by Joan and me.
I traveled to the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne the next morning and toured this historic institution, including its many buildings located in the city center. The visit started on a tour of the library, then the Center Sorbonne, and then the great auditorium with its marble stairs, one side dedicated to arts and the other to science. After this tour came lunch with the president of the university, Pierre-Yves Hénin, who encouraged Rotary to bring the Rotary World Peace Fellowships program to his school.
That evening, the districts jointly held a jam-packed Foundation dinner at the Pavillon Dauphine. It was a glittering event where I met so many of the great Rotarians in the Paris area. I congratulated them on their support of The Rotary Foundation and particularly their involvement with youth.
On 27 March, it was off to Cannes for an intercountry committee meeting focused on the theme of Peace Is Possible. This successful event, held in the famed convention center where the annual Cannes Film Festival takes place, brought together nearly 900 Rotarians, including past RI presidents Carlo Ravizza and Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar; RI directors Kjell-Åke Åkesson, Gordon McInally, Raffaele Pallotta d’Acquapendente, and Bernard Rosen; and RI Director-elect Catherine Noyer-Riveau. The organization of this event, under the capable direction of Past RI Vice President Serge Gouteyron and past district governors Barnard Attard and Lucien Barth, was fantastic!
The presenters, who included Dr. David Heyman from the World Health Organization, Ann-Belinda Preis from UNESCO, and Dr. Alain Bentolila, were all excellent. The Rotarians also did an impressive job as they suggested ways Rotary could make peace possible in the world. The weather was wonderful, the fellowship excellent, and the objectives of the intercountry committee were key to the event’s success, particularly the creation of a new committee between France and India and the promise of one between Russia and the United States.
On Sunday morning, we flew back to Chicago, and I went to Lake Forest for a dinner that marked the beginning of the 2008 presidential retreat. This two-day get-together of the RI president, president-elect, and president-nominee along with the Foundation chair, chair-elect, and chair-nominee is a think tank for discussing the progress of both parts of the organization toward their strategic goals and identifying potential problem areas. This meeting ended on 1 April, so perhaps I will talk about it in more detail next month as I continue my Rotary travelogue.