On March 23, 2021, President Hope Moye & President Elect Kelly McDonald of the Magnolia Rotary Club held a "Club Business Meeting". Pictured above from left to right are Hope Moye and Kelly McDonald.
 
Kelly McDonald started the meeting by telling everyone about her recent "Virtual PETs" class. Although, as a past president, Kelly had attended an "in person" PETs class, this was her first virtual PETs class. Kelly told everyone that the class was well done and that our new International President will be Shekhar Mehta from India. She explained that Shekhar had a very simple goal for all Rotary Members during his 2021-2022 time in office. Shekhar wanted very much for the membership of the Rotary Clubs all over the world to increase and to do that, everyone needs to "Grow More & Be More". This goal was better defined as each Rotarian getting at least one new member to join. This was shortened to "Each One, Bring One" where the word "One" means an existing Rotary member. The Rotary message for this year is "Serve to Change Lives" (see banner below).
 
 
Kelly then spoke to upcoming speakers and indicated that Charlie Riley will be speaking at our next meeting. Everyone can visit our Rotary Club website at "www.magnoliarotaryclub.org" to find out about speakers for the weekly meetings after next week.
 
Hope Moye than handed out a Rotary lapel pin to everyone and asked everyone to wear their Rotary shirt and lapel pin at all future meetings. Any member not wearing them (unless they have a valid excuse like they came from work and could not change) will be charged $1.00. These funds will go into the "Rotary Foundation" account. Every member agreed to Hope's idea to grow the amount we give to the Rotary Foundation every year.
 
Hope then spoke about the District Training happening on April 10, 2021 & the District Conference happening on April 22, 23, & 24, 2021. For more information, go to the Magnolia Rotary Club web site (see above for link). Hope also mentioned that the Greater Magnolia Chamber of Commerce is having an event at the Magnolia Event Center on Saturday March 27, 2021 and that our Rotary Club will also be represented at the event. Therefore, if any members can make it, please show up on Saturday between the hours of 12:00PM to 4:00PM.
 
Hope then opened the official "Business Meeting" and Kelly McDonald told everyone her choices for next year's club directors and asked if anyone had any changes to her list. By unanimous decision, all members approved the following slate of officers:
  • President - Kelly McDonald
  • President Elect - Hope Moye
  • Treasurer - Elliott Gabriel
  • Secretary - Barbara Provencher
  • Sargeant at Arms - David Arevalo
  • Membership Chair - Chopin Kiang
  • Foundation Chair - Real Provencher
  • Student Achievement - Ben Petty
  • Scholarships - Richard Allison & Ted Cummings
  • Webmaster - Carl Gerhardt
Hope then told everyone that the Rotary "Theme" for this month was "Water & Sanitation". She indicated that there are almost 2.2 billion people on earth that don't have access to clean water. Hope then showed the Rotary Film "Doing Good in Ghana". The film basically showed how a Rotary Club helped a village in Ghana dig a well and set up a hand pump so that they could have clean well water for their village. Everyone using the well was asked to pay a small amount to fund a bank account that would be used to take care of normal maintenance of the well system. It was noted that many Rotary Clubs have funded wells in many parts of the world at that included a water well our club funded in the past. Real pointed out that Sierra Leone also has clean water availability problems and our club might want to consider them for a future well project.
 
Hope then told everyone that our club is tentatively looking to hold our Paul Harris Dinner on June 3rd of this year and most likely at the MISD Event Center but both time and place could yet change. Real pointed out that Rotary International wants at least a 6 week lead time of informing them who the next Paul Harris Awards beneficiaries will be. Therefore, we need to nail down who will get one in the near future.
 
Hope ended the business meeting but then told everyone she was going to contact SOS to see what help they needed so that our members could bring stuff for them during April 2021 to give to them in May 2021.
 
A photo of those attending via Zoom can be seen below:
 
 
 
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