September is definitely a month for me to remember. I have been warmly greeted by the many clubs I visited and am both delighted and  inspired by the good works  done so far this year.  Club visits continue this month.

 

          Our District is full of amazing people and projects! Alligator Festival, city and river and beach clean up days, blood drives, book drives, hurricane relief efforts, Flag subscription program, and more happened in September. This month brings Battle of the Bands in Bay St. Louis where Club members’ bands compete for bragging rights by bringing in the most fan donations; all for Polio Plus. Read on for more information.

 

          Thank you for hospitality, inspiration and good food as I travel around the District. And thank you for responding to my request for book drives this Rotary year. Many clubs have given me boxes of books to store for book fairs throughout the District in the spring. As you gather books and you have ideas on how you would like to distribute them prior to the District Conference, please let me know. Don’t forget to send photos of the books and the distribution events.

 

          If you haven’t heard, Keith Clayton, a member of the Rotary Club of Edgewater, has been selected to serve as District Governor in 2025-26. Congratulations, Keith.  Welcome to the Governor team!

 

          Our plans for our District Conference next April 21-22 continue to come together. We will send out information soon about sponsorship opportunities to help keep costs reasonable and to support children’s literacy programs, the focus of this Conference. Many companies make decisions before the end of this year for 2023 events, so I ask you approach potential sponsors soon.

 

   I know there have been a few “glitches” with What’s My Club? but we are hard at work trying to make sure you are able to enter your answers. Look for the announcement next month about the fabulous prize for being the best at this scavenger hunt.  This month’s clues are:

 

Name the first  two women to serve as District Governors for our District, the years they  served and their home clubs? (hint, they served in consecutive years)

Name 4 clubs with the word Sunrise or Sunriser in their names

Name the primary host club for the 2022-23 District Conference

But just in case you missed the earlier clues, here they are, one last time:

 

Name the first 4 clubs chartered in our District with the dates of each charter

Name the home club of the current District Governor

Name the primary host club for the 2022-23 District Conference

                                   

Name two clubs which received their charter on the same date?

Name the newest Rotary Club in our district? (not Rotaract Clubs)

Name the most recent Past District Governor and his  home club (2021-22)

Name the club that hosts the Alligator Festival?

Name the primary host club for the 2022-23 District Conference

 

 

                       

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PDG Elizabeth Van Sant and I are finalizing plans for Virtual RLI sessions in January of 2023. I will post those as soon as possible and hope clubs will send members to become more familiar with Rotary and share that information.

 

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Thank you to the clubs that are sending me information for both the Service Project and Fund Raising Directory and the Club focused newsletter. If you want your club to be featured, please send me a short story that I may post. And, remember, you might want to include information that may show up as a clue in What’s My Club?

 

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The Rotary District 6840 Foundation is a 501c3 Foundation created to provide grants for relief efforts as determined by the District Governor and the Rotary District 6840 Foundation Board of Directors Rotarians or non-Rotarians may donate to the 6840 Foundation which uses those funds to respond to needs in  our District or other Districts, often working directly with District Governors or Clubs around the country when disaster strikes, whether flooding, hurricanes or other disasters. For example, so far this year our Foundation sent funds to Kentucky in response to the recent flooding and helped the Rotary Club of New Orleans transport water and other supplies to Jackson, Mississippi. We are also responding to Hurricane Ian needs. Thank you for your generosity. More information about the Foundation can be found on the District Website Homepage by clicking the link District Foundation and Disaster Relief.

 

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Several clubs have asked if I could post the list of District Grants awarded for this year. I hope to have that information for you in time for the November newsletter.  

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October is Polio Awareness month, with October 24, 2022, designated as World Polio Day. Please let me know if your club is hosting events. Rotary has contributed more than $2 billion and countless volunteer hours to immunize more than 3 billion children in 122 countries. In addition, Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in donor governments’ decisions to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort.

The United States now joins a list of about 30 other countries where cVDPVs have been identified. Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus occurs when local immunity to poliovirus is low enough to allow prolonged transmission of the original weakened virus in the oral polio vaccine (which the U.S. does not use). As the virus circulates and more genetic changes occur, the virus can regain its ability to infect the central nervous system and cause paralysis.

As long as polio exists anywhere, it is a threat everywhere. This is not the time to let up the fight — but to fight even harder.

 

Let me hear from you about your year and what I may do to help your club be successful in reaching your goals, whether membership, service, or foundation giving.  My Assistant Governors are still looking for volunteers to serve on the Territory Resource Networks.

 

And, I hope you had fun at the Battle of Bands in Bay St. Louis on October 15, 2022 as they raised money for Polio Plus.

 

 

Ponchatoula Rotary and the Ned Welles Memorial scholarship Fund are sponsoring Golfn’ Dollars for Scholars golf tournament was on Thursday October 20, 2022 at Carter Plantation.

Anyone interested in helping is welcome to contact me.

Sparky Welles

985 974-3138

 

Has your club recently hosted an event or project or are you planning something in the near future that you would like to share with your fellow District 6840 Rotarians?

 

The weekly eBulletin depends on the content provided by clubs, so please submit your stories and we will publish them on the district website and in the next eBulletin. Stories that showcase your club or event should be submitted via the website portal at this link.

 

The deadline for submitting items for the weekly District 6840 eBulletin is the 10th of the month in order to be included in the following month's edition.  If the eBulletin being prepared is getting to be too long and the story submitted is not time-sensitive, we may choose to delay including it until the following week.

 

For some guidelines on creating stories, please read more!

 

Write up the story in a common text editor such as Microsoft Word and make sure you answer the following questions:

 

Who - Who attended, who helped, who is invited

What - What is the event, is it a service project, fund raising project or fellowship event

When - What was the date or when will the event occur, include starting and ending time as appropriate

Where - Where was or is the event, provide a map if possible or at least a very specific address so a link can be created to a map complete with directions

How - How do you register, include a digital form in word or pdf or an online registration option

Why - Most importantly, why was or is the event being held, this is why someone would want to participate, be as engaging as possible

 

Send photos from the actual event if it has occurred or from a prior year complete with captions describing who is in the photo and the story behind the picture, when appropriate.