Whew!  What a week!  Area Speech Contest, Club Leadership Training, Daffodil Run, and Area Music Contest, and elementary school snacks for testing delivery made for one FULL WEEK!  This wouldn’t have happened without most of our Rotary members. 

 

There seems to be a traditional challenge for the Area Speech Contest – SNOW in April.  When it was time for the actual event, the roads and sky were clear.  Yet another challenge, one competitor emailed she had been voted to lead a school project for the entire day eliminating her from the competition.  Our own competitor had a death in the family that excluded him from competition.  One final student wasn’t prepared and chose not to compete.  Thanks to Mark Fleming for being a time keeper, Dan Halloran for his expertise judging the event, and to Dave Henderson for the beautiful certificates.  Our area winner from last year, Joe Fenner, <Left to right: Meghan Sutherland (Bear River sophomore), middle Joe Fenner (Nevada Union junior and winner), and Area Rotary Speech Chair Kyle Smith (Nevada County South Rotary)> will be representing Area 4 at District and he definitely has a good chance at winning.  What an excellent reason for signing up for District Conference May 14-17 (or just all day May 16).

 

Club Leadership Training was held at the Atlantis and Dave Walker, Mark Fleming and I were busy with a full day of well-planned workshops.   Robin Milam and Dennis Geare (NC Rotary) did an exceptional job as trainers for Hands on Technology Training.  Mark attended what I call Post P.E.T.S. training, the president-elect workshop with fellow District 5190 presidents-elect.  Mark also attended Grant Training the day before.  He really has a desire to make next year the best ever involving every Rotary member.  I learned more about club runner and secretarial duties as well as shared with the current presidents.  Alturas Rotary Club president shared their highlight of the year being one of their members donating TWO MILLION DOLLARS to their club and the positive challenge they faced with establishing a foundation for their club.  I followed Alturas and proudly shared we were privileged to host 7 past District Governors, our current DG, DG-Elect, and DG-Nominee for the announcement of Doug McDonald as DG-Nominee Designate.  I also was excited to share about our holiday basket fundraising/service project.

 

Thank you to Bob Barbaro, Mike Dobbins, Mark Fleming, Barbara & Joe Novak, Greg Marshall, Pat Swope, Eric Trygg, Luis Vazquez and his Tri-Counties Bank crew, and Hank Weston for all their work to make the Daffodil Run such a huge success!  We had 458 runners and I don’t know how many walkers.  <Lauren Pierce (volunteer), Barb Ross, Jeff George (Chamber)>The kids’ run was so precious!  They are all so thrilled to receive their medals. 

 

At our area Music Contest, I was disappointed to say our club was represented by “moi.”  There was quite a nice turn out, especially from Nevada City Rotary.  We again suffered a diminished competition pool as, for various reasons; we had 7 out of 10 compete.  However, they were diverse and very very good.  Third place went to Miles Mason on drums, second to Elliott Kramer on trombone, and first to last year’s area winner, George Daly.  Again, he has a very good chance of winning at District Conference and yet another great reason to be in South Lake Tahoe on May 16. 

 

Thanks to Bob Barbaro for helping me shop for and deliver snacks for testing to the local elementary schools Monday.  We have 3 more weeks of testing to fulfill our commitment and I believe we will be able to accomplish it with the Holiday WOW points donated.  This is extraordinary.