District Priorities for Coming 2026-27, June 6 2026-District End of Year Conference

You have to go to district governor's school which is 100% true. It is in Orlando, Florida during a whole week in January which sounds great because who doesn't want to go to Orlando for a week in January from work? Unless it's COVID. Unless it's COVID, you should get a review. So when you go to district governor's school for a week in Orlando, it sounds wonderful. The weather is gorgeous except you're literally in a hotel for a week straight and you do not see the sun. Maybe through a window if you're alive or if you're So one of the things that President-Elect Nienke challenged all of us district governors, and I am now challenging our district, all of you in the room as well as your fellow attorneys, is to be better than your best. So you're going to look at your last five years of data, find the best year. So if you had say three years ago, you had 70 members in your club and right now you're at 50, 70 is your best. So 71 is better. That's a giant, but more realistically you had 15 and you know you had 29, you're down to 19. So next slide. So then we have a couple incentives for the district. We're looking to do a net gain of 110 members throughout the district It seems like a very big number, but when you divide it up amongst the clubs it's like one point something of a person. I don't want to do the insurance paperwork for you bringing in a portion of a person, but please make it a whole person. So we're asking everyone to try and get two members per club. Jack, how many new members do we have right now? 107 once we have Beacon, which will be next week. We're looking to end the year with 107 new members, so 110 that's being better than our best. So small actions means big impact. For foundations, we're upping the game. Obviously you've seen we can do $150 per capita, so we're going up to $160. What does this mean? That means in three years if we up our game, we get to up our grant game, and that money comes back to us in district grants. Also for the foundation, I am challenging clubs, but more so the ADs, to coordinate a polio plus fundraiser in October 2026 in their region. If you need advice or help on how to plan an awesome polio plus event, reach out to any of the ADs, the Rockland County Rotarians from Region 89. Can you all just raise your hands for people if they want to ask you questions today? If you're from Rockland County raise your hands. So that holds out a room almost. If you don't know how to throw a polio plus fundraiser, ask them how to do it. Then next we have a club incentive. So Bo did the visitor's night incentive. It went over amazingly. We used the entire budget. We came a little close. Peter started yelling at us like we need to watch our money, and we said now we're going to keep going. So we're expanding it this year. So we're keeping the visitor night incentive, but it's a little bit different. So if you do a visitor's night, you're going to get up to $200 split between the districts. So if you spend $400, the district will tip in $200. You tip in $200. It's a reimbursement to help you have a great event. That could be for food, printing, location rentals, anything that applies this year under Bo's applies next year. We're also throwing in to a community event. Have a table at a street fair, go to a church fair, something that gets your club out in the community. You can get up to $200 of split reimbursement for that. If you do a visitor's night, and within 60 days you hold, or I'm sorry, if you do a community event, and within 60 days of that community event you hold a visitor's event, you are eligible for up to $500 from the district reimbursement. So pre-approval is required for those, and there are some things that we can give you district money for, like alcohol. There's a couple other things that if I try to submit the receipt, you're going to yell at me. But again, so small actions make us visible. So our 2026-2027 goals support the action plan by increasing our impact through kindness and forgiving, expanding our reach through membership and visibility, engaging our members through meaningful participation, and adapting how we show up in the community. So that's the goal. That's all I got. I got it. Yeah, got it. And now I'm going to invite Steve Laubach to the front, because he's having a conversation.