January marks the half-way point in the Rotary year and there is a lot planned in the next 6 months! First, I hope you save the date and plan to attend the District Celebration. The event will be hosted in Boise, ID, in and around the Riverside Hotel on April 21-22, 2023. The Celebration this year will include indoor and outdoor activities, some very fun service opportunities, fellowship, will be family friendly, and fun for all! Look for more information in February.
Much of the activity in the coming months includes training events available to all Rotarians interested in learning more about Rotary, about leadership, and connecting with other to serve in their community. I’d like to introduce you to Lorrie Apel from the Boise Centennial Club. Lorrie has a heart of service, a welcoming smile, and in her role as District 5400 Trainer, she generously shares encouragement, resources, and time to make learning opportunities fun and engaging.
I hope your 2023 goals and plans include attending the District Celebration in April, joining a learning event hosted by Lorrie, and continuing to engage deeply in your club’s service activities locally and globally. Peace, Janice ~
Most people associate learning with formal education at school, college, university etc. We are all told, from an early age, that we should get a good education. However, in the words of Mark Twain, “Never let formal education get in the way of your learning”. That’s the essence of lifelong learning and development. As humans, we have a penchant to evolve – learn new skills, habits or hobbies. Our ability to learn is innate. Knowledge can be acquired, and skill sets developed anywhere – learning is unavoidable and happens all the time. When we create and maintain a positive attitude about our learning our experiences in life are enhanced. Just so with our Rotary experiences. Just about the time we think we know all about Rotary, we learn something new!
The season for 2023-24 Rotary Foundation district grants will be here before you know it!
Clubs whose giving to TRF’s Annual Fund-SHARE in 2020-21 was at $100/capita or more will be able to apply for a matching grant of up to $5,000. Clubs whose giving in the funding year was below that threshold will be limited to a Tier 1 or Tier 2 grant.
Watch for the Instructions to be published and distributed in January
to learn these ranges for 2023-24. It’s recommended that you wait to start your application at www.matchinggrants.org until April, but it’s never too early to start planning.
The deadline for signed applications is June 1, 2023.
Try to wrap up your open grant projects and report before May 15th.
Review your current contributions to Annual Fund-SHARE and strive to reach the $100/capita benchmark by the end of June to position yourselves for greater grant opportunity in three years. Reach out to me, marianne5617@gmail.com, if you have questions about the process and the deadlines or if you need help with reporting requirements.
The Rotary Action Plan
As People of Action, we understand that fulfilling that vision requires a plan.
More than a century ago, we pioneered a new model of service leadership grounded in person-to-person connections. Today, those connections are a network that spans the globe—bridging cultural, linguistic, generational, and geographic barriers—and shares the vision of a better world. As People of Action, we understand that fulfilling that vision requires a plan.
This is Rotary’s Action Plan through 2024: to increase our impact, expand our reach, enhance participant engagement, and increase our ability to adapt.
We have exciting progress to report on our upcoming People of Action campaign! While we continue to gather action photos from each club in the district (send your good ones to publicimage@rotary5400.org), work has begun on the landing page. Our campaign will use digital advertising created from our action photos to direct people seeking local service opportunities to a new site.
Rotarians, you have an amazing opportunity to attend an exclusive D5400 ClubRunner training. We will have Omar, a training specialist from ClubRunner HQ, provide custom training for our district. Here’s what to expect.
As highlighted in the December Bulletin, District 5400 made news as the first Rotary district in the Western Americas to sign the Pollinator Resolution, but we are also taking action on the ground to support monarch butterfly recovery. This fall, 150 showy milkweed seed packages were requested by, and distributed to, individual Rotarians and clubs for planting across our entire district. Milkweed leaves are the sole food source for monarch caterpillars.
District 5400 was represented by more than 25 Rotarians at the Zones 26/27 Institute in November 2022! The theme was ‘Trails to Peace’ and the goal of the Institute was to inspire attendees to take some form of action towards peace in their own way. One of the engaging and fun activities was A Rotary World Café. The World Cafe hosts led more than 500 Rotary members through a series of questions to create meaningful dialogue for peace-building. The room buzzed with excitement and conversations!
ESRAG’s new Flight Carbon Estimator makes it simple for you to contribute to Rotary climate solutions every time you fly. Your donation goes into The Rotary Foundation’s fund for environmental global grants to support Rotary projects that reduce carbon emissions. By doing this, you’re increasing your awareness and turning it into action. Goal 4 of Rotary’s environmental global grant guidelines lists an array of eligible carbon reduction projects including solar power, sustainable transportation systems and cleaner cookstoves.
Did you know that Rotary International has a podcast? From stories on mentorship, polio eradication, and building peace – the Rotary Voices podcast shares meaningful, impactful conversations. Check it out on Spotify and subscribe to the series.
