Governor's Message - June 27, 2016

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
My Final 'Governor’s Message' & End-Of-The Year 'State Of The District'
 
By Jim Fusco
 
It is with a heavy heart that I write my final Governor’s Message. It has been a pleasure to serve as your District Governor. Rotary is a great organization and I am proud to be a Rotarian. I want to thank all of my presidents for a job well-done. I want to also thank all of my committee chairs, committee members, the Assistant Governor team, and the list goes on and on.
 
I want to thank our leadership Team (Pat and Skip Doyle, Karin Gaffney, and Steve Sager) for working with me as we made great progress. I want to thank my wife Karen Fusco for always being there for me. THANK YOU! All of you have worked so hard to make this a GREAT YEAR!
 
Many of you have asked me what I will do when I become a Past District Governor, as of this Friday. I guarantee you that I will not go away. 
 
On the District level, I will be an Assistant Governor for the Rotary Club of Fitchburg and I will also remain active on many of the District committees. I am working on Pat and Skip Doyle’s 2016-2017 District Directory, I will assist in the publication their weekly newsletter and I will remain on the District Communications Committee. In addition, I was honored that District Governor-Elect (as of this Friday) Karin Gaffney asked me to be her adviser.
 
On the Multi District level, I am chair of the Northeast Presidents Elect Training Seminar Committee and we are now meeting regularly to plan the March 2017 NEPETS in Framingham.
 
On the Zone level, I will be the Zone 32 Assistant Rotary Coordinator for District 7980 (Southern Connecticut), District 7890 (Northern Connecticut and Western Massachusetts), District 7950 (Southeastern Mass. and Rhode Island) and District 7780 (Southern Maine). I am looking forward to serving on the Zone level.
 
While most of this message is dedicated to the State of the District, I want to give you a glimpse of the past week and a look into my final week. 

Last week, I held my final Steering Committee meeting with your DGE (Pat and Skip Doyle), your DGN (Karin Gaffney) and your District Governor Nominee Designate (Steve Sager); I installed Dan Cunningham (shown on right) as 2016-2017 president of Fitchburg Rotary. Also in the photo along with me is Dan’s wife, Sandy Cunningham (shown in middle).
 
I also installed Jennifer Peck (shown on right, with me) as president of Montachusett Area Rotary.
 
And, of course, I spent most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday with many of you at Rotary Youth Leadership Awards at Fitchburg State University. I concluded the weekend by attending the Installation ceremony and reception for Pat and Skip Doyle, also at FSU, who will become your DGs this Friday.
 
This week, I still have plenty to do. On Monday, I installed Otto Prohaska as president of Sturbridge Rotary. (I felt really short standing next to Otto.) And, I was proud that my wife Karen Fusco installed Dawn Marino as the president of Athol-Orange Rotary. On Wednesday, I will be at the Assistant Governor's meeting, and on Thursday, my last day as DG, I will install Chris Spear as president of Nashoba Valley.
 
Just imagine that on July 1 Rotary worldwide will have 35,247 new club presidents, 535 new district governors and one new Rotary International president. Our district will be installing 51 new presidents and one pair of new district governors. I will be turning over the District Gavel to Pat and Skip Doyle on July 1 - and I wish them the best!
 
End-of-the-Year State of the District
 
I am proud to report that Rotary District 7910 is alive and well. At my installation as District Governor on June 16, 2015, I presented my goals for Rotary Year 2015-2016, which began last July 1. I told you that I had a lot of running around to do - and that, I have done. In fact I am now on my 15th pair of sneakers. Now that we are at the end of our year, I would like to report on how we did.
 
Before I get into details, I want to remind you that my opinion has always been that on either the Club level or the District level we should never have a committee of one. When my year began, many committees and subcommittees were operating in just this way. Unless we have members on these committees, then the task of mentoring a future chair is not possible. Sharing ideas is so important for success and a committee of one has no one to share ideas with. We have made great progress on this vision. We now have the Membership Committee, the PR Committee, the Rotaract Committee, the Youth Services Committee and now many of the Foundation subcommittees are operating with more than one member.
 
Interact: I stressed the importance of strengthening our youth programs and stated that I saw no reason why every Rotary club could not sponsor an Interact Club. I challenged Interact Chair Ron Bott to strengthen our Interact program and to institute an Interact Advisor Training Program. On July 1, District 7910 had 14 Interact clubs, on December 6 we had 16 clubs, and today we have 23 clubs. In December, Ron predicted that we would have 20 Interact cubs by the end of my year – and he beat that prediction by three. In addition, we have great news because Ron now reports that there are eight new clubs in various stages of formation. Ron held an Interact Advisor Training Seminar last November 14. Congratulations to Ron for a job well done!
 
Earlyact: I also noted that Earlyact clubs would be a great feeder network for our Interact Clubs and I encouraged the Rotary clubs to consider forming Earlyact clubs in their local elementary schools. When the year started, we had zero and now we have three.
 
Rotaract: Rotaract Chair Carl Gomes has also been working hard and I also challenged him to strengthen our Rotaract program and institute a Rotaract Training Program. Last July 1, District 7910 had two Rotaract Clubs (Boston University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute) and we have added the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to the list – so we now have 3. We are still hopeful that Brandeis University and Framingham State University will be added to this list in the near future. We held a Rotaract Advisor Training Seminar on February 29. Plans are now in the works for a joint Interact/Rotaract Training Seminar on September 17. Thank you, Carl.
 
Rotary Youth Leadership Awards: Our 22nd RYLA was held this past weekend and it was the best RYLA ever! Congratulations to Christine Pinney, Skip and Pat Doyle and the entire RYLA Committee for putting on this fantastic event at Fitchburg State University. We had 188 sophomores attend this three-day event and they were sponsored by 42 clubs. We were expecting 39 clubs to send students and 40 clubs to send volunteers and we exceeded both of those goals. This was the first year we held RYLA at FSU and everything went well. This program is well and alive. Christine is the RYLA chair for 2016-2017 and I wish her and her committee continued success.
 
Membership: Last June 19, I reported that membership had slipped during the past year and we would do something about it. I challenged Satya Mitra to establish a Membership Committee, hold a minimum of one committee meeting per quarter, and encourage club membership chairs to participate on the district committee. This has worked. On July 1, it was a committee of one. But by the first committee meeting in August, it had grown to nine members. The goal was to have 25 active members on this committee and we met this goal. Although we met this goal, only 15 attended the latest committee meeting. Our Membership Forum was held on October 14 and it was well-attended. Membership on July 1, 2014 was 1,575, by last July 1 it had dropped to 1,493, and is now 1,488. The Membership Committee has created a corporate-membership packet that is available for the clubs. Last July 1, we had two clubs utilizing corporate membership. Although we don’t have an exact count on corporate memberships, we estimate that we now have a total of more than 30 Corporate Memberships in 12 clubs. Satya will set up a better accounting system to track corporate members, going forward. Members of the Membership Committee have visited more than 30 clubs since last June 1 to promote membership.
 
District Membership Resource Team: Membership attraction and retention was a major concerned for me and I told you that I was going to establish a Membership Resource Team that would be available to help clubs specifically in membership, when asked. This Team has officially been established with Tom Sturiale (Framingham Rotary) as the chair. The first club to ask for assistance was Northborough Rotary and the Team will be meeting with that club’s board in July.
 
Newsletter and Communications: Last June 19, I stated my belief that communications with our clubs needed to be improved. To do so, I pledged to have a weekly newsletter and to improve the district website. With the help of many, this has been done. The Rotary District 7910 Newsletter is now sent out every Monday at 6 a.m. (thank you, Steve Jones-D’Agostino) and I have encouraged the clubs to “toot their horns” about their projects and fundraisers. This has worked because all 51 clubs have sent in materials for the newsletter. In addition, more and more District Committees are using the District’s ClubRunner platform for e-mail communications as well as for registering for meeting and events. The District Website (www.rotary7910.org ) has been cleaned up, is updated daily and is much easier to navigate. 
 
Speakers Bureau: I stated that it is extremely important to have good speakers in order to have good meetings, so I pledged to increase the effectiveness of the speaker list on the district website. I appointed Steve Levitsky as the Speaker Bureau Chair. Last June 1, we had six speakers on the list and now there are 14. Great job, Steve.
  
Social Media: I recognized that we needed to do a better job on Social Media and use this vehicle and other Social Media platforms to better promote Rotary. We had more than one Facebook page so now we have consolidated them into one and we are using You Tube for photos and videos. Our Facebook page is updated daily. Our "Likes" were too low so we ran a Facebook contest and our "Likes" increased from 465 to 654.
 
Foundation: Foundation Chair Roy Balfour (Shrewsbury Rotary) will be finishing up his third and final year as District Foundation chair this week and will be turning over the reins to Sanjay Deshpande (Wachusett Area Rotary) on July 1. Thank you, Roy for your service. Foundation giving for 2014-2015 set a record with $210,033, and for this year we now stand at $177,219 for ’15-’16. Many clubs send in their Foundations donations late in June so hopefully we will get a last-minute influx that will push us over the top to a new record. We added 11 new Paul Harris Fellows to our roll call and now have 196. In a future newsletter, a complete list of Foundation giving will be provided.
 
Polio Plus: Last June 19, I stated that I wanted to encourage Polio Plus giving and to educate our clubs on polio and Purple Pinkie Day. I noted that only Afghanistan and Pakistan still had polio and that with the final push it was possible to eliminate polio in those two countries by this June 30 (we are not quite there).Carl Good took this task to heart and with the help of Pam Anastasi and Chris Spear they have been visiting clubs to educate them on Polio Plus. They have now visited almost every club in the District to bring the End Polio Now message. It has worked because our polio donations for 2015-2016 have set a record ($16,965 for ‘14-‘15 and $32,207 for ‘15-‘16). In addition, I requested that we donated $900 of our unused District Designated Funds to polio and that $900 was leveraged to $4,050.
 
District Scholarship Committee: Rotary has some scholarships available that do not cost the clubs (Peace Fellowship Scholarship and UNESCO-IHE scholarship are examples), and the District also has a scholarship available (Morley Scholarship is an example) that also does not the cost the clubs. The key to awarding those scholarships is to get applicants to apply - and we have not done a good job at this. I figured that to solve this problem we needed an active Scholarship Committee. To do so, I appointed Tory Defazio (Wellesley Rotary) as the District Scholarship Committee chair and asked him to implements a scholarship plan. We now have an active committee of eight members, who are working on a plan to promote the scholarships. Much more to come in the next few months.
 
Global Scholars: We have had the honor of having Waltham Rotary host NJ from Tibet as a Global Scholar at Brandeis University. NJ has now finished up his education at Brandeis, and we have a new Global Scholar, Tatsuya Hayase of Japan, being hosted by the Waltham club. Tatsuya will study at Brandeis.
 
Public Relations: Last June 19, I reported that good PR is the key to growing membership and I challenged District Public Relations Chair Laura Spear to grow the PR Committee by encouraging club PR chairs to participate on the committee and to hold a minimum of one committee meeting per quarter. This has worked. Last July 1, it was a committee of one but by the first committee meeting later that month the committee had grown to six. The goal is to continue to grow this committee by reaching out to the club PR chairs. Our annual PR Forum, held last September 9, was well-attended. Laura has been visiting clubs and is encouraged by the increased engagement. Here are just a few of the actions that have been accomplished: assisting in writing news releases when requested; working on PR for the Meal Packaging event last November 14 at Solomon Pond Mall in Marlborough; updating the PR section on the website; updating the district’s Facebook page; managing the district banners; and providing advice to clubs when requested for presentations, brochures, videos, flyers, etc. Our annual Social Media Seminar was held on March 31.
 
Awards (Club Planning Worksheet): Last June 19, I stated that I wanted to streamline the award system because I felt not enough of the clubs were applying for awards that they deserve. With the help of the Awards Committee, co-chaired by Bob Cassidy and Klaus Hachfeld, we created the Club Planning Worksheet that clubs would use as a planning tool and that would ultimately be used to qualify for awards. This form weighs a club’s progress on a point system that is based on the percentage of participation - and not by the number of club members who participate at a district event. Thirty-nine clubs used this form and turned them into me by the April 1 deadline. This was a great success. This form is now being tweaked and will be used for the 2016-2017 Rotary year.
I am proud of the accomplishments made by our clubs and individuals. Congratulations to all. Here is a list of the Awards that were received this year:
  • Citation for Meritorious Service Award to Roy Balfour of Shrewsbury Rotary
  • International Service Award for a Polio Free World to Dr. Carl Good III, PhD, of Merrimack Valley Rotary
  • The Rotary Foundation Service Award to Shirley MacPherson and Arnie Miller of Brookline Rotary, Lynn Duffy-O'Shea of Brookfields Rotary, Mike Thorton of Neponset Valley Rotary, Al Bowers of Athol-Orange Rotary, Ralph Hammond of Bedford Rotary, Richard Simon of Nashoba Valley Rotary, Michelle and Tony Gasbarro of Montachusett Area Rotary, Sanjay Deshpande of Wachusett Area Rotary, Mike Beekof Westford Rotary, John Sbrogna of Montachusett Area Rotary, Mark Blumentahl of Natick Rotary, Patricia Thorpe of Ayer Rotary, Tom Sawyer of Milford Rotary
  • Vocational Service Leadership Award to Karen Jacobs of Brookline Rotary
  • Major Donor Award to Satya  and Supriya Mitra of Worcester Rotary
  • Major Donor Award to Michelle and Tony Gasbarro of Montachusett Area Rotary
  • Paul Harris Recognition to Dawn Phelan of Ayer Rotary and Melinda Nicholson of Bedford Rotary
  • Club of the Year Gold to Concord Rotary
  • Club of the Year Silver to Bedford Rotary
  • Club of the Year Bronze to Nashoba Valley
  • Rotarian of the Year to Dick Andersen of Littleton Rotary
  • Rotarian of the Year to Steve Jones-D’Agostino of Auburn Rotary
  • Service Above Self Award to Klaus Hachfeld of Sturbridge Rotary
  • Rotarian Spouse/Partner Service Award to Les Davis of Auburn Rotary
  • Presidential Citation Gold to Acton-Boxborough, Concord and Nashoba Valley Rotary
  • Presidential Citation Silver to Bedford and Gardner Rotary
  • Presidential Citation Bronze to Brookline and Wachusett Area Rotary
  • Presidential Citation for Interact Clubs to Bedford, Wellesley and Nashoba Valley Rotary
  • Make Your Mark Award to Acton-Boxborough Rotary
  • Club Service Award to Concord Rotary
  • Community Service Award to Littleton and Worcester Rotary
  • International Service Award to Concord Rotary
  • Vocational Service Award to Bedford Rotary
  • Youth Service Award to Acton-Boxborough Rotary
  • Club Growth Award to Leominster Rotary
  • Strategic Partners Award by Nashoba Valley Rotary
  • PR Coverage Award to Brookline Rotary 
  • Digital Marketing Award to Acton-Boxborough Rotary
  • Brand Compliance Award to Brookline Rotary
  • Innovative Use of PR In A Project to Auburn Rotary
Visioning: The visioning program has now been in place for more than three years and the participation by clubs has been exceptional, with Bill Domings as the Visioning Committee chair. This year, we “visioned” five clubs and we have three more in the pipeline. 
 
Rotary Leadership Institute: Last June 19, I explained that RLI is a great program for all Rotarians (leaders, new members and long-time members) and I encouraged District 7910 members to attend. In October 2014, 58 Rotarians from our district attended RLI This past October, 74 attended RLI.
 
District Directory: I reported that I felt that the District Directory should be a hard-bound publication that includes valuable reference material about Rotary, historical information about our district, the District Resolutions, and club and member details. During the past several years, the District Directory had been streamlined and required readers to visit the district website to get this information. While my target to deliver the Directory was last July 1, it was not ready until August 7. In order to minimize the cost of the Directory, ads were sold and due to the generosity of our members we raised $2,450. Thank you to the many Rotarians who supported us on the Directory.
 
District Conference: The District Conference was held in May at the Hotel 1620 in Plymouth. With District Governor Nominee Karin Gaffney as District Conference Committee chair, I knew that we would have a great Conference - and she did not let me down. Her committee was busy visiting clubs to promote the Conference - and it worked. It was a great weekend with 195 people attending the Paul Harris Dinner on Friday and 150 people attending the Awards Dinner on Saturday. Saturday afternoon was free time and our attendees did various things, including golfing, cruising on Plymouth Harbor and visiting Plimoth Plantation. We had a great House of Friendship with more than 25 displays and a silent auction that raised $ 3,845 for the Foundation. We all had fun having our photos taken in the photo booth.
 
In closing
 
No names are being provided for these 2016 District Conference photo-booth shots – to avoid embarrassment.
                                                                                                                              
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We have accomplished so much this past year - and I could continue to go on and on. But I will stop here.

As I promised when my year began: We Did Have A Great Year!
 
"Rotary District 7910 Rocks!"
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jim Fusco, 2015-2016 governor of District 7910, may be reached at  jim.fusco2@gmail.com.