There is so much to write about that I am unsure where to start. BUT - best place will be to offer thanks to Dorinna, our terrific Executive Director, and to Erica, her stellar assistant. Dorinna guides each new President through their first tentative steps in the role. Then she is there to offer insights, thoughts, commentary and assistance thereafter, patiently answering questions.Thank you Dorinna. Many times over, thank you. Praise must also be given to the brilliant Board of Directors, and I must say that this year the club has the most dedicated and diligent Board that a President could possibly hope for. Our club has, for the first time in a long time, faced an upheaval in its processes. No longer, as of July 1, 2023, have we been meeting weekly. Instead of raising dues, we, instead, chose to meet three times a month. This may seem a retrograde step to some, but in fact it’s an exciting opportunity for us as a club to think beyond our usual parameters. While we remain at the TCC for our 3 meetings a month, we now also have the opportunity for activities unthought of previously. On the ‘spare’ Wednesday, members joined together in July to visit the PCC Automotive Technology and Innovative Center, in August to visit the Linda McCartney photography exhibit at the Center for Creative Photography, and in September to go to the Gem and Mineral Museum, with a visit to a local restaurant afterwards; other planned activities will include a walking tour of downtown Tucson and a trip to the Ignite Museum.
Our club thrives on and is driven by intertwined strengths: our membership drives our programs which in turn drive our membership and, interlaced with membership and programs, is our strong and refreshed dedication to service projects. Programs, Membership and Service Projects together work to “Create Hope in the World”, the current Rotary International Theme.
We still have a distance to go to even suggest that we are achieving our goals but the foundations being laid by our current Board and committee members will stand us in good stead for the immediate future. Diana Madaras has operationalised a structure for not only establishing Service Projects but also for ‘staffing’ these projects with members. We now have regular, annual projects, we have new projects, we have resurrected prior projects, and we have structure which will flow into future years. There is no doubt about our achieving our service goals this year. Of course, I cannot neglect to mention the car show: it is our signature event and while it may take up a lot of our time, it does generate thousands of dollars for our local non profits. No other service project could do that. Lee Olitsky - thank you for keeping us on track.
For Membership, we have Mitch Pisik, who is similarly establishing structures that will stand the club in good stead: he has talking points, processes, and energy…..again, there is no doubt about our attaining our membership goals. We are well on our way to surpassing our goals. I believe we have reached a tipping point for membership growth.
The Program committee has been doing a stellar job: given its head to build an excellent program, we can say that the programs have truly lived up to expectations. We have heard from the UA Arts director (who whet our appetite for upcoming artistic displays at the UA), from Don Guerra, the James Beard award winning local baker, from the scientists who have continued Dian Fossey’s Mountain Gorilla conservation efforts in Rwanda, from a Gen Z spokesperson, and from a specialist in all-pervasive computer technology. I cannot thank the Program Committee sufficiently. If we did not have exciting and interesting subjects to listen to, it would be a sad luncheon indeed.
Finally, we have reintroduced fun and lightheartedness to the club. We want members to attend the lunches because THEY want to. Our excellent Sergeant at Arms is busy ‘fining’ (sorry ‘recognising’) members, encouraging Happy Jacksons, and playing his guitar, and I personally have re-introduced the telling of jokes (okay, some may not think they are funny but some others do!)....and who can forget Brittany Battle talking with Paul Harris on the recently rediscovered telephone?
I truly look forward to being able to discuss, in more detail, in the next quarterly report, the advances we have made in attaining our membership, service project, and program goals. We are an outstanding club. There is no doubt about that.
Cheerfully
Margaret Higgins, PhD
2023-2024 President
Rotary Club of Tucson
Tucson, AZ, USA
520 406 7813
