It is really just a little more than a week away from the District Training Assembly (DTA) and the Foundation, Membership, & Public Image Seminars.
Every club should expect its officers and directors to attend this one-time only Rotary club training for the upcoming Rotary year and every club should encourage its members, especially newer members, to attend the training. The DTA is on April 27th, 2019, at Old Dominion University, Webb Center, 1301 49th Street, Norfolk, VA.
It only costs $50 and includes free parking, breakfast, & lunch. And then there is all of the information, ideas, and connections with fellow Rotarians from across the district.
Need more information. Go to the April 27th block on the dacdb.com calendar and read all about it and while there, r-e-g-i-s-t-e-r.
April 2: District 7600 Giving Tuesday. Individual contributions matched up to $500. Must be made online in My Rotary to the Annual Fund. April 2 only. Accelerate your first or your multiple Paul Harris Fellow Recognition.
April 20: Grant Management Webinar. Attendance qualifies a club to apply for a Rotary grant. Attendees may attend in person or in the location of their choice by computer. Attendees will need access to wifi/internet connection. This is the final chance for a club to meet this attendance requirement. Registration is free and is on the dacdb.com calendar.
April 27: District Training Assembly & the Foundation, Public Image, and Membership Seminars (no separate August Seminars this year). The Grant Doctors will be on duty that day. Registration will be available next week on dacdb.com calendar.
May is Youth Service Month:
May 1: Clubs must have entered their Foundation Giving Goals for the year in Rotary Club Central to be eligible to apply for a Rotary grant. This is a new district requirement.
May 1: Clubs will need to have closed out any district grants for the 2018-2019 year to be eligible to apply for a district grant. All grant related processes are completed in the grants module on dacdb.com.
May 2: Polio + Baseball at the Norfolk Tides at Harbor Park.
May 15: Deadline to submit district grant applications through the grants module.
May 16: Polio +Baseball at the Richmond Flying Squirrels at the Diamond.
May 23-26: Marshalling at the LPGA Tournament at Kingsmill.
Welcome home to the Costa Rica Literacy Global Grant Team:
This was a follow on visit to Costa Rica by members of the Rotary Clubs of Richmond, Huguenot Trails, James River, and South Richmond. This multi-year, multi-club global grant provides books in the English language for a regional Costa Rican school system. On previous visits Rotarians realized that there was a shortage of toothbrushes and toothpaste in the schools. So they chipped in on the side and brought along the much needed items. This grant was featured in the March issue of the Spirit of 7600 which can be found on rotary7600.org. A follow up article will be featured in the May issue of the Spirit.
Assistant Governor Shel Douglas and Past District Governor Stephen Beer shared many of their photos and stories from their Water & Sanitation grant project in Ghana on all of our District 7600 channels. This extensive Global Grant allows individual clubs, even small ones to “invest” whatever they can afford finanically to the efforts to improve access to clean water, safe sanitation, education, and economic development in Ghana. In District 7600 the Rotary clubs of Prince George and South Hill took that opportunity and through their involvement, Ghanain communities will be benefitting from Rotarians’ concern and generosity.
Another such story is the story of the Soap Chips District Grant spearheaded by the Churchland club. This multi-club, multi-partner District Grant provides private, portable showers for the homeless in the greater Hampton Roads area. These are private showers with hot water, hygiene supplies, and fresh socks, provided on a regualr basis to those in need.
Both the Ghana grant and the Soap Chips grant have been featured in recent issues of the Spirit of 7600, our the District’s Facebook pages and in this blog. As recently as today (March 22), Past District Governor Bill Pollard and AG Shel Douglas have posted on Facebook, Bill specifically about the Soap Chips grant, and Shel, a meme she created to celebrate that today, March 22, is the UN’s World Water Day.
District Giving Tuesday: Get a boost towards your Paul Harris Fellow
Let’s Celebrate Onine District 7600 “Giving Tuesday” on April 2
Giving Tuesday in Rotary District 7600 is on Tuesday, 2 April 2019. On that day contributions to the Annual Fund made online will be matched with recognition points up to an individual contribution total of $500.00.
To receive the matching points, you must contribute on that dayonly through online giving at My Rotary. If you don’t have a My Rotary account you will need to set it up in advance of the 2 April 2019 date as it takes a day or two to be established.
Last year the District raised $52,639.00, a 6% increase from the 2017 Giving Tuesday’s amount. Hopefully, we can beat the 2018 mark this year.
Remember, only individual, online contributions to the Annual Fund made on 2 April 2019 are eligible for matching points.
Rotarians who have attained Paul Harris Fellow plus 8 (PHS+8) are ineligible for recognition points as they can only be transferred once and do not count towards Major Donor status.
The Grant Management Seminar is on March 16 and any club wanting to receive a District Grant or be a participant in a Multi-Club District Grant must have at least one person (more are welcome) attend the GMS.
So be sure that your club is in the game! Go to dacdb.com calendar and register for Pete’s sake.
The District 7600 Presidents-Elect are at Chesapeake Presidents-Elect Training (PETS) this weekend receiving training for their year of Presidency. Their terms begin July 1, but their work has already begun. They will return from PETS inspired, but also stunned by all of the possibilities. How can you help?
How can I help my P-E?
The first thing you can do is by helping take some of the load of her or his shoulders. One humongous opportunity for P-Es and their clubs is the whole grants thing. Every club wants to do a great local or international grant project. It is a reality that the district grant deadline (global grants operate differently) is on May 15, well before the P-E’s presidency begins. In addition to that two additional district grant eligibility requirements occur on May 1 when:
a club must have its Foundation Giving Goals entered into Rotary Club Central, and
a club must have closed out (approved final report) any 2018-19 district grants in which the club participated.
2019-20 Grants Documents:
You, yes you, whatever your role in the club, but especially if you are the incoming Club Foundation or the Club Service Projects Chair, can download important documents about this grant cycle. These documents will be shared with the P-Es this weekend, but they are also available on the District Foundation’s website.
While there, why not enter your email address to get up to the minute (almost) Rotary District Foundation news?
The Peace Fellow application is a demanding but rewarding process, beginning with a club recommendation to the District of a vetted and club endorsed candidate. Then ensues an intense District level interview and further vetting process
Michael Little of the Rotary Club of Richmond is the District’s Peace Fellow Chair and can provide assistance in the process. His contact information can be found in dacdb.com of course.
Michael Little Rotary Club of Richmond District Peace Fellow Chair
For your initial information, you can download this fact sheet provided by The Rotary Foundation. The District will have its own internal guidelines and deadlines. Contact Mike for District 7600 specific information.
Duke-UNC Rotary Peace Center Conference on April 6
Registrations are being accepted now for the annual spring Peace Conference at the Duke-UNC Rotary Peace Center. The event normally sells out, so register soon at:
You can register now for Grant Management Seminar (GMS) on March 16, 2019, on the dacdb.com calendar. Don’t let your club let this opportunity slip by to be eligible to apply for or participate in a Rotary grant.
Incoming District Rotary Foundation Chair, Stephen Beer, promised that registration for the Grant Management Seminar to be held on March 16 would be open by February 15th. By golly, it is open! In fact, Rotarians from the Western Henrico, Chester, and Prince George Rotary clubs have already registered.
PDG Stephen Beer in Ghana
A bit of nitty-gritty
For a club to be eligible to apply for and receive a Rotary grant, it must have had at least one member attend a Grant Management Seminar (GMS) for that grant year. It is recommended that a club have more than one club member attend because:
that one person might win the lottery and decamp for the islands
that one person might have napped off during GMS and missed something really important
carpooling is a way to share ideas on the ride home
You might note there will be a GMS Webinar on April 20th. More details will follow about it. Attendance at either the March 16 Seminar or the April 20th Webinar will qualify the club to apply for a Rotary Grant. Registration for the Webinar will be open at a later date.
GMS details
Flyer by Dianne Shannon Gordonn, District Public Image Chair
Last week as we ushered in Peace and Conflict Resolution Month we highlighted work in progress on Water and Sanitation global grant projects in Ghana. District Rotarians Shel Douglas (Prince George) and Past District Governor Stephen Beer (Innsbrook) are on the ground on that series of grants. Yes, you will get a little update.
India:
We also have had a team in India working on preventing polio and vaccinating children. The 7600 Rotarians on that trip are Colleen Bonadonna (New Kent) our district’s Polio Plus Chair, Dianna M. Waters (Brandermill), and Muriel Hawkins (Petersburg Lunch). After two weeks of work, they are getting a little R & R.
Polio Plus Angels, Dianna, Muriel, Colleen
Costa Rica:
We have also learned of a global grant project in Costa Rica spearheaded by the Rotary Club of Richmond, with the Rotary Clubs of James River and Huguenot Trail joining in. This project has been to provide English language books to elementary schools in Costa Rica. Members from the Richmond Club have already been on one or more trips to Costa Rica including, Michael Little, Jeanne Walls, E.M. Miller, and John Delandro. Around the end of March, there will be another trip of local Rotarians to Costa Rica to bring additional books to assist elementary school children in learning and improving their English language skills. Mike Little, Jeanne Walls, Kelly Keene, and Karin Jimenez (James River Club) are scheduled to go on that trip along with Mike’s and Jeanne’s spouses.
Ghana:
The district Rotarians have actually just landed in Accra (about 1 pm our time Thursday) where they will meet with the District Governor on Friday morning. Then the team will have a few hours to shop, rest, read, whatever before they catch their flight back to Virginia. Two pictures sent by Shel captured this writer and are shared here. This is also an homage to our Rotarians in India just about to finish their work there.
Part of the grant project in the Andasi village in Ghana was to install a block of micro-flush toilets. This project builder is a young man trained last year by the grant’s master trainer. Everyone had said that this polio survivor would never be successful. He has proved them wrong!
Builder
Block of micro-flush toilets being built
This blog is just a teaser … More in the March Spirit of 7600
All three project trips will be featured in more detail in the March Spirit of 7600. It is an abundance of riches to have many of our District 7600 Rotarians engaged in three different international endeavors, Polio Plus, and two global grants, but how interconnected they are! Doing good in the world.
Rotary is serious about waging peace: “Through our service projects, peace fellowships, and scholarships, our members are taking action to address the underlying causes of conflict, including poverty, inequality, ethnic tension, lack of access to education and unequal distribution of resources.”
February is Rotary’s Peace and Conflict Resolution Month. Clubs, through their district and global grants, are often getting at the underlying causes of conflict, one ‘starfish’ at a time.
Consider Our Ghana Global Grant
District 7600, the South Hill Rotary and the Prince George Rotary have joined many other districts and clubs in the US and other countries in a series of global grant projects in Ghana to supply borehole wells, micro-flush toilets, schools and school libraries to outlying communities. There are other components as well, such as solar collector power units, and disease prevention supplies.
Shel Douglas with school-age children in Ghana.
One of the two suitcase solar panel kits installed in Ghana.
PDG Stephen Beer conferring with village leaders in Ghana.
On the road to the village of Abansere, Ghana.
Past District Governor, Stephen Beer, and Assistant Governor (Area 6), Shel Douglas, are on the ground now in Ghana, representing this district and our clubs in this complex series of grants.
Access to potable water, proper sanitation, education, access to electricity and other facilities, do so much to raise the quality of life, provide access to economic development, and resources for the future of the young.
Rotarians are waging peace, being the inspiration, and connecting the world.
The District 7600 Rotary Foundation Committee (DRFC) joined other district leaders and committee chairs at our annual training on January 25th and 26th. District Governor Elect, Clenise Platt, and the District Trainer, Mary Landon, led the large group through introduction and communication exercises. All came away from the training enthused and eager to begin our Rotary work under the new theme for 2019-2020, “Rotary Connects the World”
DRFC Team Members in 2019 DTTS Planning Session
Incoming District Rotary Foundation Committee Chair
Welcome to Stephen Beer as he prepares to begin his three-year term (2019 -2022) as the DRFC Chair while on a water and sanitation grant in Ghana! Saturday he was in Williamsburg at the district training. Tuesday he was in Ghana with Shel Douglas and other team members. More about Stephen and his team coming soon.
90 Day Calendar
The next 90 days will be busy as Rotarians fulfill their goals for the current Rotary year and implement the training and building blocks for the 2019-20 year. How are you and your club doing?
February 16-18 Rotary Youth Leadership Awards -Wakefield
March 1-2 Chesapeake PETS -Presidents-Elect Training – Chantilly
March 16 – Grant Management Seminar-Colonial Heritage (Registration to open around February 15th)
March 16-Rotary Leadership Institute (RLI) (1-3) – Fairfax
April 6 – UNC-UNC Peace Conference -Raleigh-Durham
April 6- RLI (1-3) – Norfolk
April 9 – District Golf Outing – Kingsmill
April 20 – Grant Management Webinar – ODU Peninsula Work Center
April 27 – District Training Assembly & Seminars – ODU
Yes, GMS is the acronym for Grant Management Seminar. The in-person GMS will be on March 16, 2019, at the Colonial Heritage Club in Williamsburg. More details will be shared about this training, and the registration will be open for it around the middle of February on dacdb.com.
More about GMS
A club’s attendance at a GMS is required every year for that club to be eligible to participate in a district grant for that Rotary year. Even if the club is not the lead club, but a partnering club, at least one member of that club, must have attended a district Grant Management Seminar. That is the rule of The Rotary Foundation. The district may not waive it. And, by the way, GMS is fun!
Out of curiosity, do you know what the acronym DRFC stands for? Not to belabor the point, DRFC refers to the District Rotary Foundation Committee. It is also used as the acronym to identify the Chair of a district’s DRFC.
Do you know who currently holds the DRFC title in District 7600? Do you know how long a DRFC serves? Has there ever been a woman DRFC in District 7600? What does the DRFC (committee) do? For that matter, what does the DRFC (Chair) do?
Assuming you know anything about the DRFC, who has been your favorite DRFC? Why? Who have been the most recent DRFCs?
An informal poll was taken of recent Past District Governors to assist in reconstructing the list of prior DRFCs and the years they served. The past DRFCs relied on their memories or referred to treasured souvenir district directories so accuracy may be suspect.
Bob Stallworth (2000-2001),
John Nelson (2001-2002),
Joe Mulkerrin (2002-2007),
Bob Preston (2007-2010),
Bill Pollard (2010-2013),
Jim Probsdorfer (2013-2016),
and currently, Chuck Arnason (2016-2019).
It appears that before 2007 the term for a DRFC was one year. Past Rotary International Director Joe Mulkerrin served for five years, and after that, the DRFCs have served for three years.
Now who will be our DRFC when Past District Governor Chuck completes his term in June?
The first peace fellow graduating class was in 2004. There are 1235 living alumni from the peace fellow programs through 2019 (excluding the 2018-19 class at Bradford University. Almost all of the graduates have provided employment information to Rotary International at least once. Here are some employment tidbits from those updates.
Bill Rintz, Alumni Relations Specialist for Rotary Peace Fellows, provided an update on peace fellow graduates via Mark Zober on the Rotary International Federation of Rotarian Editors and Publishers (Rotary IFREP) Facebook Group recently.
38% work for NGOs or other peace-related organizations
14% work for governments or the military
10% are teachers or professors
7% work in research or other academic positions
5% are in advanced degree programs
5% work for UN agencies
3% are lawyers
3% are in law enforcement
1% work for the World Bank
7% do not fit into easily described categories
5% are in an employment search mode.
Do any of these figures surprise you? Have any ideas about how these peace fellows are distributed around the world?
Vadim Ostrovsky (3rd from right), Peace Fellow Alumni, honored at the Warwick at City Center Newport News Club in 2918. Vadim works in the Richmond area.
The featured image of the Rotary Peace Doves is by Debbie Vance and the photo of the Rotarians and Vadim Ostrovsky is by Carol Woodward.
