[D9640general] [eFlash_Rotary] Digest Number 826

[Garry Krischock]

Messages In This Digest (2 Messages) 

 

1. 1560: Wheel chair dream project <>  From: Henry 

 

2. 1561: General Secretary's <>  Quarterly Report From: Sunil K Zachariah 

 

 

Messages 

1.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eFlash_Rotary/message/1478;_ylc=X3oDMTJxYTBjd
mdjBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzI3ODYwNzYEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDY0MDg2BG1zZ0lkAzE0N
zgEc2VjA2Rtc2cEc2xrA3Ztc2cEc3RpbWUDMTIyMDYwMjAwNw--> 1560: Wheel chair dream
project 

 

Thu Sep 4, 2008 2:05 am (PDT) 

Last August 28, 2008 in the occasion of the Second Cluster 2D Meeting
with Matching Grant Seminar, the Hundred Islands Rotary awarded a
wheelchair to a Baltazar Lejero, a man born with deformed legs and
feet. The meeting - seminar was held at the Fel-Am's Restaurant, San
Jose Drive, Magsaysay, Alaminos City.

President Henry R. Onia in the introduction of the wheel chair project
and of the beneficiary related that he has been seeing Baltazar Lejero
(Manong Bal) go to church crawling. It became part of his prayer that
some day he would give a wheel chair to him. This prayer and dream of
his became true through important course of events. He was elected
President of the Hundred Islands Rotary which makes the dream nearer
to reality because the club could conduct fund raising activities to
fund this project. The cost of a wheel chair would be somewhere
P10,000 to P15,000.

A fellow President during the Rotary Year 2008-2009 finally became
instrumental for the realization of the dream. While bargaining for
the order of club pins during the District Assembly in Oxford Hotel in
Clark Freeport Zone, the owner of Whoa Apparel, Inc., authorized maker
of Rotary memorabilia, offered the bargain that she would give
President Henry a wheel chair if he would order of club pins and order
the award for outgoing presidents. Even with a tight budget,
President Henry grabbed the offer.

The ordered club pins and the wheel chair were delivered during the
Tri-Seminar in San Fernando City, La Union on August 24, 2008. The
fund which could be raised in fund raising project for the purpose of
procuring a wheel chair for Manong Bal could now be used in equally
important community project.

In behalf of Manong Bal and the Hundred Islands Rotary, he expresses
his heartfelt gratitude to President Ma. Daisy O. Serneo of the Rotary
Club of Metro San Pedro, San Pedro, Laguna, R.I.District 3820 for
donating the wheel chair.

With an act of kindness in the part of President Daisy, she had made a
difference in the life of Manong Bal.

Source: "Henry" <elijah_joseph at yahoo.com <mailto:elijah_joseph%40yahoo.com>
> / Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary

 

2
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eFlash_Rotary/message/1479;_ylc=X3oDMTJxazdmO
GxnBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzI3ODYwNzYEZ3Jwc3BJZAMxNzA1MDY0MDg2BG1zZ0lkAzE0N
zkEc2VjA2Rtc2cEc2xrA3Ztc2cEc3RpbWUDMTIyMDYwMjAwNw--> 1561: General
Secretary's Quarterly Report 

 

Thu Sep 4, 2008 3:25 am (PDT) 


July 2008

Dear Fellow Rotarians:

I am pleased to bring you up-to-date on some of the major projects 
and accomplishments of RI during the fourth quarter of 2007-08. All 
divisions in RI have their routine tasks, those every day 
responsibilities that keep the Secretariat running smoothly. 

Corporate Services 
Corporate Services staff supported the June and "July" Board 
meetings, prepared the advance memoranda, arranged meetings 
logistics, and managed follow-through to Board decisions. Official 
Suggestion Forms for RI director, along with the list of 2008-09 
Director Nominating Committee members, were sent to the clubs in 
zones 3, 8B, 10, 12, 16, 26, 31, and 34. Staff sent materials to all 
members of the 2008-09 RI and TRF committees, including the terms of 
reference, a list of members, information on the functioning of each 
committee, and expense report forms.

Human Resources.

In addition to providing soft skills and new hire orientation 
training, the Learning & 
Organization Development department graduated 24 RI employees in a 
Management Development Certificate Program, established a best 
practices manual for RI internships, and debuted a new certificate 
program in critical thinking.

Legal Services
2010 Council representative certification forms from approximately 
68% of districts were received at the Secretariat this quarter. To 
help facilitate the distribution of information to Council 
representatives, staff began development of a Council representative 
extranet site. Staff again reminded representatives and 2008-09 
governors of the new 31 December 2008 deadline to submit legislation 
to the 2010 Council. Approximately 70 items of legislation received 
to date.

The Trustees have approved a new associate foundation for Japan and 
work continues toward its establishment. Similarly, the Trustees have 
approved a new associate foundation in Germany to supplement the 
existing associate foundation there. The new entity will be 
structured in a more typical manner than the existing one to allow 
for the establishment of a permanent fund structure.

Strategic Planning
Staff supported the Strategic Planning Committee meeting, prepared 
plan materials for distribution at the Los Angeles convention, 
provided support to the Vocational Service Committee, and prepared 
information for the Board retreat. The division spent most of its 
time preparing for and presenting the recommendations of the Future 
Vision Committee to the Trustees and Board, including the plan's 
concepts, criteria, and detailed implementation plans.

RITS
RITS completed a comprehensive bid of the travel management account 
vendors and global payment program providers. Proposals were 
submitted by three global travel agencies as well as three credit 
card payment system providers. In both cases, after extensive 
evaluations, RI selected the existing vendors, Diners Club and 
American Express, for having the most competitive cost structure 
combined with innovative products and services. RI signed a three 
year agreement with Diners Club. A three year American Express 
agreement will be signed in the first quarter. 

Staff completed work on the selection of those airlines that will 
offer Rotarians a discount for travel to the Birmingham convention. 
These discounts will be posted on the official convention Web site. 
Staff focused on keeping organization-wide airfare costs within 
budget despite higher airfare costs. As the quarter closed, based on 
preliminary numbers, organization-wide airfare expenditures are 
expected to be between approximately 2-3% below budget.

Affinity Credit Card
Focus continued on growing existing programs in the US, Mexico, and 
Canada. Positive discussions were held with ICICI Bank in India to 
replace the program with Standard Charter Bank that was closed in the 
third quarter. A new program may be delayed as a result of the weak 
credit market worldwide. Despite this weakness and overall slowdown 
in economic activity, RI card programs continued to perform well and 
our card issuing partners reported that the performance of the RI 
card portfolio is among the best of their groups. 

ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT SERVICES

Information Services 
IS staff continued work on the membership system re-write, which is 
focused on "phase 1" functionality. This includes moving all Rotarian 
and organizational structure information (club & district 
information) to a new application called netForum. RI purchased the 
software at the end of April and the vendor Avectra's consultants 
joined the project team in May.. Additionally, during the first week 
of April, staff successfully completed the PeopleSoft (Oracle) 
Financials upgrade. 
Operationally, the Data Center project to upgrade the cooling 
capacity was completed. This enables RI to grow with no 
infrastructure constraints in the Data Center for the next 10 years.. 
Staff also worked to improve infrastructure upgrades for better 
internet connectivity and quality at all the international offices.

Data Services has also begun a major initiative to clean up "bad 
data" before converting to the new system, by reviewing detailed 
member information country by country and correcting errors. Data 
Services hopes to work through most of the 1.2 million records before 
the new system is completed.

COMMUNICATION SERVICES

Communications
Communications staff provided extensive support to the 2008 
convention, including interpretation, speechwriting, promotion, 
videos, photography, and on-site printing. Daily convention coverage 
appeared on rotary.org, including five videos of convention events 
and attendees that portrayed the convention as an exciting, "don't 
miss" experience. Page views on rotary.org reached new records during 
the convention week. 

Public relations staff organized a press conference with Trustee 
Chair Bob Scott, World Health Organization Director-General Dr. 
Margaret Chan, UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, and Director of 
the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Julie 
Gerberding that resulted in articles on Rotary's new fundraising 
drive to eradicate polio and WHO's declaration of polio eradication 
as its top operational priority in USA Today and the Canadian Press, 
among other media.

Through a partnership with the convention's Wide World of Books 
project, the Los Angeles Times ran three full pages of donated ads 
about RI and the convention. Also, a full-page ad about RI's effort 
to end polio ran in USA Today.

Sales of RI publications, photos, and videos totaled US$44,460, 
almost US$10,000 higher than the previous year, thanks in large part 
to increased marketing efforts. Convention workshops on public 
relations and RI communications resources drew near-capacity 
participation. 

The June "Rotary in Pictures" edition of The Rotarian featured 
excellent photography, many from staff photographers. The July cover 
story featured incoming RI President D.K. Lee. An RI team of writers, 
photographers, and videographers traveled to Korea with the president-
elect to get content for the magazine story and for future Broadcast 
Media projects. Advertising sales totaled US$162,172 for the three 
issues, down 3.7% from last year. Sales totals through 11 issues are 
at US$687,262, down 3.1% from last year. The downturn can be 
attributed to the U.S. economy and the fact that The Rotarian 
discontinued running the controversial ads for "male enhancement" 
products.

This quarter showed increases in traffic on the Web site, in 
particular in the News section (including RVM, RI News, and The 
Rotarian). The Web Department is also working to refine the Download 
Library so that the most used documents are instantly accessible. 
Total page views in the fourth quarter were 12,855,497.

In addition to convention-related videos, Broadcast Media staff 
completed an edition of RVM, a Peace and Conflict Studies promo 
video, a Peace is Possible DVD in language versions, a membership 
video set, videos on Rotary's US$100 Million Challenge, Rotary and 
the International Community, and the Foundation Future Vision Plan. 
Staff photographers covered polio eradication in India and Nepal, the 
RI convention, and other events, and produced the Year in Pictures CD 
package.

Public Relations
During the convention, Rotary television spots were placed on United 
Airlines in-flight programming; Rotary signs were displayed 
throughout the Los Angeles International Airport, on city bus 
shelters, and on a billboard along busy Century Boulevard; and the 
Rotary television PSA was played in more than 100 movie theatres 
across the country. 

Staff obtained an interview for President-nominee Kenny in Scotland's 
Sunday, in which he delivered Rotary's advocacy message in advance of 
the G8 summit. In North America, the Windsor Star, Canadian Press, 
and CBC national public radio covered the Presidential Peace 
Conference in Windsor, Ontario. ABC-TV in Detroit interviewed 
Rotarian Pat Olson, a Myanmar cyclone Shelterbox volunteer. The 
Toronto Star profiled past RI President Wilkinson, and Radio Korea in 
Los Angeles aired a story on the convention and on D.K. Lee becoming 
RI president. The Korea Times and Korea Daily published stories 
related to Rotary, incoming President D.K. Lee, and the LA 
convention. YTN-TV in South Korea aired a feature story about 
President-elect D.K. Lee and the LA convention. The Economist 
published a story on the Myanmar cyclone recovery and mentioned 
Rotary in connection with Shelterbox. The Sunday Post in Scotland 
mentioned Rotary in two articles about the Myanmar cyclone recovery. 
German World published two news briefs on the convention and book 
drive on its Web site. In Latin America, Telemundo broadcast live 
from the convention book drive and aired live interviews with Mexican 
Rotarians. 

Rotary's Humanity in motion PSAs aired on 1,700 television and 5,500 
radio stations throughout North America. External Relations staff 
coordinated Rotary's participation at key international events, 
including UNESCO Executive Board Meeting, U.S. State Department award 
reception, World Bank spring meeting, US Agency for International 
Development (USAID), US Department of Agriculture International Food 
Aid Conference, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Regional 
Conferences and Summit, UNICEF Executive Board Annual Session, World 
Economic Forum on Africa, and the UN Foundation Anniversary 
Reception. In addition, RI Representatives, delegates, or staff 
presented or exhibited at several key international meetings. RI 
received NGO observer status for the UN International Fund for 
Agricultural Development. With a 22% increase in applications from 
2007-08, RI granted 163 Best Cooperative Projects Awards to clubs 
from 83 districts.

MEMBERSHIP SERVICES

RI Programs 
In the fourth quarter, there were 177 new Interact clubs, 192 new 
Rotaract clubs, and 120 new Rotary Community Corps registered (for a 
total of 11,605; 7,396; and 6,357 respectively). This represents a 5% 
increase for Rotaract clubs and a 4% increase for Interact clubs in 
2007-08. Staff processed a record-breaking 12,300 presidential 
citations, 900 Rotaract citations, 500 Interact Citations, and 80 
district governor citations. Programs staff also awarded more than 
800 Four Avenues of Service citations, 120 Public Relations awards, 
and 118 Significant Achievement awards. In support for the World 
Community Service program, there were 56 new projects posted seeking 
assistance on ProjectLINK, and RI processed donations of US$18,265 
for projects posted there. Staff registered 83 new Rotary Volunteers 
for a total of 560 Rotarians interested in serving abroad. Programs 
staff provided support for training in Evanston of the Health & 
Hunger; Literacy; Water; and Youth Services Resource Groups' 
leadership, and also supported training for the Child Mortality 
senior coordinating team appointed to facilitate President Lee's 2008-
09 emphasis. 

Club and District Support
RI processed the admission of 392 new Rotary clubs in the fourth 
quarter, 11% more than the same quarter last year. Also, staff 
processed 185 executive decisions, including four district 
incorporations (73 district incorporations to date), and nine club 
mergers. Staff processed 140 responses on behalf of the president and 
the general secretary, plus 341 Memo of Club Visit forms, 451 
governors reports, and 267 expense reports (a 156% increase over the 
number of reports processed last year). 

Leadership Education and Training 
Staff supported the May meeting of the 2009 International Assembly 
committee. The committee developed a draft program and approved the 
final list of RI training leaders and invitations were mailed to all 
40 training leaders. The two seminar trainers have been confirmed. 

Staff revised the GETS Leaders' Guide and mailed it to the GETS 
training team members. The District Governor's Training Manual and 
the District Conference Manual were also revised and sent to 
production this quarter. 

Staff worked on several initiatives to expand the training and 
information provided on the importance of financial management. The 
new District Governor's Training Manual, for example, includes 
expanded information about financial management; the club treasurer 
section of the Club Secretary's Manual has been posted to rotary.org 
in all nine languages; and staff researched content for a Club 
Treasurer's Manual, to be available for 2010-11 club treasurers. 
Financial management is one of the six recommended topics for new 
governor-nominee training, which is being developed in 2008-09 for 
distribution in July 2009.

E-learning was a priority for the Leadership Education and Training 
division staff in the fourth quarter, with staff developing several e-
learning initiatives, including Web conferences for GETS, online case 
studies, formal modules for the Rotary E-Learning Center, and online 
video messages.

Membership Development
End of year membership numbers are not yet finalized as RI is still 
receiving paperwork for new clubs organized during 2007-08. 
Membership staff developed support materials for twelve presidential 
membership conferences to be held throughout the Rotary world during 
2008-09. Staff attending the Los Angeles convention conducted 
membership-related focus groups-one appealing to younger 
professionals and another to women professionals. RI made agreements 
with external vendors in Australia, Argentina, and South Africa to 
conduct focus groups of non-Rotarian women professionals and 
professionals between 35 and 50 years old. These will be conducted 
immediately before or after the presidential membership conferences 
taking place in these regions. RI began a new membership-focused ad 
campaign for 2009-10. 

International Meetings
Preparations for the Los Angeles convention consumed most of 
International Meetings' time in the fourth quarter. Preliminary final 
paid attendance registrants totaled 18,702. Staff is still processing 
all required payments so the final financial statement is still 
pending. RI has contracted the 2009-2011 International Assemblies at 
the Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego. RI requested the hotel to 
provide a proposal for the 2012-2014 International Assemblies by mid 
July. Requests for proposal for the 2013 and 2016 Councils on 
Legislation have been sent to six hotels in the Chicago area.

.
FINANCIAL SERVICES

During 2007-08, senior Rotary staff and Rotary's insurance broker 
conducted an organization-wide risk assessment. The assessment did 
not uncover any risks that management was not already addressing. 
Cyber/data protection liability was identified as a significant risk 
and staff began procuring an insurance policy for it.

With the financial markets sharply down in June, the gains in April 
and May were reversed. Based on preliminary market returns, RI's 
General Fund is projected to report a loss of approximately 5% for 
the fiscal year ending 30 June 2008. The actual results will depend 
on how Rotary's investment managers performed relative to their 
benchmarks. 

The external auditors have completed their 2007-08 interim audit 
procedures for RI's annual audit. The 2008-09 fiscal agents have been 
appointed or reappointed as required.

With all best wishes,

Ed Futa
General Secretary

Source: Director Ashok Mahajan / Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary

 

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