Dublin-Worthington News Stories

Monday, January 6, 2020
By: John Butterfield

Happy New Year!

As we end the first half of the Rotary year and head into 2020, our club and members have many reasons to celebrate. Included among our accomplishments are:  

  • Marking the club’s 45th anniversary during the month of September with meeting programs focusing on global peace and understanding, leadership, and fellowship and strong relationships, themes that have been part of our club and Rotary International since our founding. The highlight was gaining insights into the club’s founding and learning lessons of leadership from our charter members.
  • Experiencing record levels of involvement in service activities benefiting youth and their families and enhancing community beautification and our environment. These activities strengthened our partnerships with the Family Mentor Foundation, Worthington Schools, City of Worthington and the WKHS Interact Club and made our community better.  
  • Welcoming six community and business people to our club, including the return of one member, while sadly losing seven members.
  • Carrying out three successful fund-raising activities -- the Rotary Family Picnic, poinsettia sale and holiday party silent auction -- and surpassing the amounts raised in recent years.
  • Supporting cultural understanding through hosting international and area high school students at the Youth Exchange Weekend and hosting a team of business people and educators from Romania through the New Generations Service Exchange program.
  • Fostering the development of future leaders by sponsoring three area high school students to participate in the three-day RYLA program in July.
  • Providing stimulating speakers at weekly meetings on a variety of topics, including Ohio history, peace leadership, cyber security, county, state and federal government, economic growth in the central Ohio region, and nonprofit organizations making a difference in the lives of women and youth.
  • Hosting three Rotary After Hours (RAH RAHs), including the first Trivia Game, and the annual holiday party.
  • Raising $2,000 for Polio Plus through a combination of member and club contributions. With matching funds, a total of $4,000 was contributed to support Rotary’s efforts to eradicate polio.  

Our achievements are a reflection of all of our efforts, and I want to thank you for your support, involvement and ideas during the past six months.

Some things we will be working on through the remainder of the year are:

  • Recommendations of a task force on ways to strengthen our scholarship program for area high school students, beginning next year.
  • Initiation of Classification Talks by members at club meetings and other vocational-related programs.
  • Continued emphasis on recruiting new members and retaining existing members.
  • Exploring ways to increase the impact of our service activities.

Finally, your support of the club’s Super-Bowling Tournament on Saturday, February 1, is very important.  This new fund-raising project will provide funding for college scholarships for Worthington and Dublin students and for vocational scholarships for needy students in the Dominican Republic. It’s a great cause and will be lots of fun. Please take time to learn more about this event by going to our website (www.dublinworthingtonrotary.org), signing up and inviting family members, friends and colleagues to join you.

With your continued engagement and support in the second half of the year, I know we will have an amazing year of service, leadership development, learning and fun. Looking forward to working with you.

John

Rotary RSS Feed