We are PEOPLE OF ACTION doing good, in Edmonton and abroad.
YEG Passport is a new type of Rotary Club for busy people who want to make positive changes in our community and the world. We get together on the last Wednesday of each month at a variety of locales across Edmonton. All our members are encouraged to serve in all 5 areas of Rotary service and to reach out and connect with other Rotarians around the world.
A sunny Saturday morning saw YEG Passport club members and family add almost a dozen“Rotarians At Work" join the Edmonton West club planting trees in Brookside. This initiative is a partnership with the City of Edmonton's Root for Trees project that supplies the shovels, gloves and young trees and bushes for increased tree coverage in neighbourhoods around the city.
This event is great fun and fellowship while beautifying our community for generations to come. Thankfully the weather cooperated and the previous rains made the digging a little easier too. Huge thanks to Guiscela, Mark L., Tom K., Kathy H and husband Gary, Clarissa R. and husband Shawn, Don W., Ryan L. and friend of the club and prospective member Tobi O. and her children.
Part of improving the Rotary experience is making sure that members have the tools they need to run their clubs, learn new skills, apply for grant funding, and quickly, securely, and easily contribute to The Rotary Foundation.
We listened to ideas from members and enhanced several online tools to better meet members’ needs. Tools that now offer a better user experience include:
Rotary Club Central: Clubs use Rotary Club Central to set strategic and measurable goals each year. Almost 20,000 clubs have set goals in 2018-19.
The Learning Center: Launched in August, Rotary’s new online learning platform offers more materials and has made learning more fun. The site includes features like virtual badges that users can earn by completing courses, dashboards that track their progress, and coming soon, social learning in which members can share documents on course topics. More than 350 courses are offered in 20 languages.
The Grant Center: This is where clubs go to manage their grants from The Rotary Foundation from application to final report. This year, we redesigned the district grant application to make it easier to use.
Making an online donation: Donors can now donate quickly and securely from their mobile devices and receive immediate acknowledgment of their contributions. It’s also easier now for club officers to give on behalf of their club or its members.
Building on the success of these projects, we have already started enhancing other digital tools:
Peer-to-peer online giving will empower Rotary’s donors to raise money for The Rotary Foundation on social media. Soon, you’ll be able to use your personal and social networks to raise funds to honor important events like birthdays or participation in athletic events.
My Rotary will be easier to navigate and search from any device. Club and district leaders will be able to manage their information quickly and easily while staying connected with Rotary. This will allow you to focus on what matters: serving your clubs, your members, and your community.
Want to know more? Ask your club for insights into these tools or email your Club Assistant Governor mgmucha@shaw.ca
Stephanie went from Down Under to the top of the world to see if one person can make a difference.
See for yourself the impact she and other Rotarians are making.
The clacking of sewing machines fills the sunlit room until word spreads that the bus has arrived. At that, a dozen women clad in pink kurtas file into the courtyard of the Seven Women Center in Kathmandu, Nepal. They smile widely as a group of Australian women led by a tall blonde enters through the iron gate.
Stephanie Woollard bends down to let Sandhya Khadgi, the center’s bookkeeper and literacy trainer, put a dot of red powder on her forehead and a red flower petal atop her head in a gesture of welcome.
Woollard has arrived with a group of Rotary members and friends to tour the center that she founded and whose goal is to improve the lives of women in Nepal.
You too can join in to visit the Seven Women Center.
Rotary International's annual convention was in Hamburg, Germany this year. Since I have family in Hamburg anyway, whom I haven't visited in 6 years, I took the opportunity to make this my first RI conference visit, the 110th international conference in Rotary's history.
Today as I was preparing to send an End Polio Now update to all of the districts in Zone 24 W, I received an e-mail from Mike McGovern, Rotary's International Polio Plus Chair. He was sharing the disturbing news that in the last two weeks four polio workers were killed in Pakistan and a propaganda program against polio vaccinations in that country has created hysteria that led to tens of thousands of children needlessly going to hospital. There are news stories circulating regarding the current polio eradication efforts in Pakistan and Rotary and its partners are doing all that is humanly possible to address the many situations. If you have any further questions about the current situation please contact me as End Polio Now Coordinators are kept well informed.
Mike also shared that three new cases of wild polio virus were confirmed in Afghanistan last week and two new cases in the lab in Pakistan were confirmed this week. Thus we have gone from 9 cases this year to 12 officially and two more known. The message we are being asked to share with Rotarians is to emphasize our long term progress, to highlight the African progress (Africa is expected to be declared polio free by August 2019) and to indicate we have challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan which are being addressed by Rotary leaders.
