Plotting the End of a Dangerous Disease

I was fortunate to participate in a chat on Twitter today about global efforts to wipe polio from the face of our planet.

The discussion is actually continuing as a write this, and it’s using the hashtag #poliochat. If you miss the live discussion, go back through and take a look at some of the comments and questions. It’s fascinating to interact with people across the world who share a common interest — saving children from the debilitating effects of polio.

As a member of Rotary International, this conversation has special meaning for me. Rotary and its global partners have made the elimination of polio a top priority. Take a look at this graph detailing polio’s demise. It is indeed a rare thing we are trying to accomplish, but look how close we’ve come!

Whether a Rotarian or not, you can be a part of this global effort by contributing to Rotary’s PolioPlus Fund. The world will thank you.

Taking Advantage of the United Nations-Rotary Outreach Programme

The Canyon Rotary Club is very excited to host an event of particular significance here in the Texas Panhandle.

We’ve taken advantage of Rotary’s close relationship with the United Nations and are hosting an expert on global poverty issues through the United Nations-Rotary Outreach Programme. Our club is pleased to welcome Dr. Donald Lee, a retired U.N. economist and chair-elect of the International Committee for October 17th, to speak about efforts to eradicate poverty.

Our poster promoting the event is to the left (click on it to enlarge the image). We’re looking forward to having as many Rotarians and “prospective” Rotarians as possible attend what I believe will be a historic — and highly informative — event for our community.

Titled “Ending Poverty: The United Nations and Millennium Development Goals,” the lecture will be held at West Texas A&M University in the Mary Moody Northen Recital Hall (building #4 on this campus map). It is a free event, and the public is invited. We’ll have seating available for approximately 600 people.

If you’re interested in learning more about Dr. Lee’s topic before he arrives, I can refer you to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals website.

My fellow Canyon Rotarians and I look forward to seeing you.

Some Recent Events to Celebrate

The Canyon Rotary Club has been enjoying a solid number of Paul Harris Fellow recognition ceremonies lately. I wanted to share a few pics with you.

That’s me (on the left) with Kim Taylor. Several weeks ago he was recognized with yet another Paul Harris Fellow pin.

Lal Almas (l) is another Canyon Rotarian who recently became a multiple Paul Harris Fellow. Here he is with District 5730 Governor David Norris. (By the way, our club is also proud that Lal has been named a Fulbright Scholar and will be teaching in Azerbaijan.)

It was just a few weeks ago that Kim Taylor (r) was recognized with yet another Paul Harris Fellow pin, and he was able to share the ceremony with John Hartin, who was also recognized as a Paul Harris Fellow the same day.

I have one more picture for you. District Governor David Norris (l) took advantage of his recent visit to present former club president Keith Brown with a few certificates the club earned during Keith’s tenure as president.

I’m really proud that the Canyon Rotary Club is full of members who take their commitment to serving our community — and supporting Rotary’s worldwide mission — so seriously.

Promoting Literacy in Our Community

The Canyon Rotary Club has been providing dictionaries to local school students for several years now. Specifically, we’ve made it our mission to give a brand new dictionary to every third grade student in the Canyon Independent School District (that includes their teachers, too). Today was another delivery day.

Here you see Canyon Rotarians Joel Richardson, Don Johnston and Marty McClish (l-r) standing at the front of a room full of more than 150 third grade students at Reeves-Hinger Elementary School in Canyon. Before the students arrived, Joel told me that he always likes to ask two questions: “Who knows what Rotary is?” and “What is literacy?”

Pretty much 100% of the time (today included), at least one student says literacy is when you throw trash on the ground. In addition to a nice chuckle, that remark provides Joel with a great opportunity to encourage them to use their new dictionaries to learn what that “literacy” word actually means.

Rotary is Everywhere (including my parents’ closet)

I’m visiting my family during the holiday season, and that usually means pulling boxes out of closets to see if there’s anything in there someone may want or need (or throw away). One of my brothers found this in a box that had been sitting in the top of one of those closets.

That’s a Paul Harris pin and medal, and it belongs to my dad. His memory is really fuzzy on this matter (there are reasons for this that are beyond the scope of this post), but apparently he’s a Paul Harris Fellow.

I had no idea.

Before retirement, my dad held a couple of high-profile public education positions, and that meant he got occasional invitations to speak at local civic and service clubs. It’s possible that, somewhere along his career path, a local Rotary Club decided to bestow this honor on him.

So there’s a little bit of Rotary legacy in my family that I had no clue about. I guess you never know what you might find packed away in a box!

If you’re interested in supporting the Rotary Foundation through a Paul Harris Fellow, here’s the link.

And one more thing. I’m composing this while (sort of) watching the 2012 edition of the Rose Parade. Congrats to Rotary for winning the Princesses’ Trophy for a float depicting the fight against polio!

Away for the Holidays

As a university professor, I really enjoy having the holiday break so I can return home (to Alabama) to visit my family and long-time friends.

This year’s break, though, comes with just a smidgen of sadness. My absence means I won’t be seeing my Rotary colleagues for a few meetings. I’ll miss them while I’m gone.

While I’m away, I’m planning on using Rotary’s awesome iPhone app to find Rotary meetings in my area. Haven’t heard about it? Read a little bit more about it on Rotary’s website. I’ve had plenty of conversations with my fellow Canyon Rotarians about the joys of visiting with fellow Rotarians in other cities and countries. I plan to do that while I’m back in Alabama.

I’ll share one more thing on this post. RI has posted a link to its Top Five Rotary Stories of 2011. The fight against polio — which happens to be something I’m keenly interested in — is listed as Number Three. There’s some great news coming out of India. So far for the 2011 calendar year, that country has reported only one polio case. That’s remarkable progress toward eliminating this disease.

Have a wonderful holiday season!

Lunch with 80 Years of Rotary Experience

The Canyon Rotary Club did something this past week that we don’t often do — we canceled our meeting. Our city experienced some snow and bitterly cold temperatures earlier in the week, and area roadways were quite treacherous (there were more than 200 reported accidents in the Amarillo area on Monday alone).

In addition, we meet on the campus of West Texas A&M University, and there were still a lot of slippery spots on campus at noon on Tuesday.

I stood outside our usual meeting place to catch anyone who didn’t get the message that we’d canceled, and there were only a few. By the time we were satisfied that no one else was coming, there were three of us standing there: myself, one of our members (who didn’t get the message) and one of our usual guests (who wasn’t on our e-mail list). We decided to go get some lunch at a nearby restaurant.

It was a great opportunity for me to hear from two gentlemen who have spent more than 40 years each in Rotary. As they were enjoying their lunches of catfish (I chose chicken), they talked about the many changes — good and bad — and challenges Rotary has endured during their membership.

We talked about how “doing it by the book” can sometimes squeeze the fun out of Rotary; the importance of solid leadership for a successful club; past Rotarians who made special contributions to the organization; and the need to attract new, active members who believe in Rotary’s mission (as opposed to “Resume Rotarians”).

Moments like this one — sharing lunch and conversation with people who are committed to improving their communities through service — are among my most valuable personal experiences as a member of Rotary.

Finding Rotary Online

Considering that only 11% of Rotary’s global membership is younger than the age of 40 (note: I’m still in that group), I’m quite impressed with how the organization has embraced social media. I think it’s an important tool for not only promoting Rotary’s work but also for attracting younger members to our organization.

I thought that I’d use this post to highlight a few of Rotary’s social media initiatives.

Did you know RI has its own channel on YouTube?

Rotary’s on Facebook, too. You can find us at https://www.facebook.com/rotary.

Do you have a Twitter account yet? Here are a few feeds I suggest you follow:

Rotary International — @rotary
End Polio Now — @EndPolioNow
Rotaract — @rotaract
John Hewko, General Secretary and CEO of Rotary International — @JohnHewko

Need to make up a Rotary meeting? (I strongly encourage you to do so if you’ve missed yours). There are several online-only Rotary Clubs, and I like to use the Rotary eClub of the Southwest USA whenever my travels have taken me away from Canyon.

And, of course, we can’t forget Rotary’s primary presence on the web, www.rotary.org.

I’m sure there are other social media sites to add to this list, but these are the ones I use fairly regularly. I hope you enjoy them!

A Great Couple of Weeks

The last couple of Canyon Rotary meetings have been extra special.

For our November 15 meeting, it was our privilege to have District 5730 Governor David Norris with us. It was his second visit of the Rotary year (which is a real coup for us), and he came to receive a first volume of a Rotary history of our district. Volume I (of three) is apparently difficult to find, and our club had one. We were happy to present it to him.

It was also our privilege to have our district’s Group Study Exchange chair, John Kanelis, with us at the same meeting. He was able to speak to us about our district’s upcoming exchange with the Dominican Republic (May-June 2012).

As great as it was to have both of these fine Rotarians visit with us, the past two weeks saw two — TWO — Paul Harris Fellow recognition ceremonies. One of our members became a Paul Harris Fellow +2 (PHF+2) and another achieved PHF+4 status. It is Rotary tradition to give a rousing standing ovation to everyone who achieves any level of Paul Harris recognition. (By the way, Paul Harris is the founder of Rotary. Read about Rotary’s beginnings.)

These contributions help Rotary perform the vital work of improving our communities locally and globally through the Rotary Foundation.

GSE and the UN

It has been quite a successful couple of weeks for the Canyon Rotary Club.

First of all, our Group Study Exchange team nominee, Kim Bruce, a faculty member at West Texas A&M University, was chosen for the team! (I wasn’t surprised.) Just as a reminder, Rotary District 5730 is sending a team of four professionals (which will be led by a Rotarian team leader) to the Dominican Republic for one month during May-June 2012. Kim and her colleagues will serve as ambassadors for Rotary, for Texas — even for the United States. They will visit Rotary clubs throughout that country and live with Rotarians during their stay there. Our club is very excited about Kim’s participation.

I had the great fortune to visit the United Nations in New York City this past weekend to participate in the annual Rotary-U.N. Day conference. Here’s a picture of me goofing around just a little bit during a break inside the U.N.’s chambers.

It was a humbling experience to learn about just a few of the many programs and initiatives Rotary is working on to improve people’s lives across the globe. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to attend this conference again, but I certainly can recommend it to all Rotarians. I came back to Canyon even more energized about Rotary’s mission in our community.