We welcomed District Governor, Dave Cook (Boone), and his partner, Lisa.
Our meeting of August 20 was very special in many ways. We not only heard about the goals and plans for District 6000 from DG Dave Cook, but we also inducted a new member, welcomed about 20 guests, and honored two members and their spouses with additional Paul Harris Fellowship award levels. Shelly Schmit was inducted into our club with Andreas Soemadi as her sponsor. She is transferring from the Mason City Rotary. Welcome to Shelly! We also welcomed our new exchange student, Nicole Fernandes de Souza, from Brazil. Nicole is starting City High this week as a senior. Roger Christian and his wife, Chris, were honored for achieving Paul Harris Major Donor Level 1 and Roger received his Paul Harris +8 pin. Mark Stanley received his Paul Harris +4 recognition pin. Congratulations and thank you for your outstanding support of the Paul Harris Foundation! President Vernette exchanged flags with several members of the Rotary Club of Huehuetenango, Guatemala and also with Nicole from her sponsoring club in Brazil.
Our District Governor's theme was about demonstrating "The Magic of Rotary" (this year's RI theme) within District 6000 and our own club. DG Dave noted that the magic of Rotary is how much good we can do in our communities and around the world by working together. He related a story from his stay at the Paul Harris home in Chicago where he and his wife picked up a bag full of acorns to recognize that Paul Harris planted oak trees all over the world. He was reminded of a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Creation of 1000 forests is in 1 acorn."
These were listed as goal areas for the District and our Club: 1. Achieve member growth in D6000. The goal our club president set for this year is at least to grow from 61 members to 64. (We have achieved that within the first two months of the year!) 2. Engage new members so that we retain more of these new members long term. IC AM has a better record of new member retention than the District 6000 average, but we should not rest on our laurels. 3. Start 4 new extension clubs in the District. Right now 15% of the clubs in the District have satellite or extension clubs. IC AM will be working to reinvigorate our PM Satellite with members from among community professionals in addition to the University-related students we already have as members. 4. Generate new ideas for great service projects. These should be projects within the 7 areas of focus that our members can be passionate about and enthusiastically get behind. 5. Raise $1M for the Rotary Foundation in this Rotary year within the District. There will be a Gala on November 15 in association with the World Food Prize to help meet this goal.