This past weekend the city of Fairhope hosted Rotarians from around the southern half of Alabama as members of the Clubs in District 6880 gathered for our mid-year convention. I think the registration numbers, including spouses, were between 140-150, which is a good turnout. Friday was dedicated to disaster response. I want to thank Steve Funchess for bringing and returning our Disaster Response trailer to Fairhope United Methodist Church, which served as the gathering point for activities this past Friday. There were several good presentations about how our District has responded. Thanks to District Governor Howard Eddy, our Club will receive a well-stocked first aid/medical response kit. We also are going to receive some oxygen tanks and an AED defibrillator to have in the case of emergencies while in the field. I also want to thank Tom Burkett for providing the free space for our trailer to rest while waiting on the next disaster, and for being our contact with VOAD.
On Saturday, our Club volunteered to serve a pulled pork lunch to attendees. I want to give a special shout out to Tony Gasbarro, Jim Daniell, Rick Lyon, Bill Booher, and Chesley Allegri for showing up to assemble sandwiches and setting out everything for attendees to enjoy. We provided pulled pork sandwiches with sauce and pickles, chips, and cookies. These fellow members gave up a Saturday morning to be “service above self.”
There were some good informative sessions at the convention. My only disappointment is that more members were not a part of the event. The annual conference will be in mid May in Gulf Shores. I will be lobbying more members, especially officers, to attend relevant sessions and to be a part of the larger Rotary community. There are some great people among our fellow Clubs; you need to get to know more of them.
One of the sessions was about an app called Ignite by Member Minder, which was created by and works with DACdb. I encourage you to download the app and check it out as a faster alternative to DACdb.
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