On Saturday, April 7, all Rotarians in District 7190 are invited to attend the annual District Training Assembly. This year our training theme will focus in on an issue affecting us all: The opioid crisis.
The morning event will be held at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. The Training Assembly will bring in content-experts to orient us all to this complex issue which has taken root in all our communities. We will use what we learn about the crisis to engage our training objective: to understand and practice how to identify complex issues in our local communities and engage collaboratively with community partners.
We will use the One Rotary Summit (ORS) design to facilitate our training. ORS is designed to shine a light on the relationship among club membership, public image, and service through engagement with local communities and the Rotary Foundation. In short, more members means greater service projects, more service projects means more visibility for Rotary, and more visibility leads to more members, more members leads to more grant support, etc.
In the context of the opioid crisis, the ORS model will showcase how community collaboration can lead to a stronger public image for each Rotary club, how that image can help to identify like-minded prospective members in the community, and how the Rotary Foundation might provide support and funding to assist with the community effort. This virtuous cycle can quickly gain momentum and offer benefits to the community and the club for years to come.
More details will be forthcoming soon. The most important detail, however, is that many clubs already are nibbling at the edges of this very complex and insidious problem plaguing our communities. Some clubs already are sponsoring community forums; and, some clubs are actively engaged with partners to deliver education and support. Other clubs don’t know where to start despite a passionate desire to help. It reminds me of the old saying: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Look for registration information and additional details coming soon. Thank you for all you do, for your communities, for your clubs, and for humankind.
— District Governor Fred Daniels
Meeting at Quigley’s Restaurant
CLYNK RECYCLING — Bill Dowd reported that we are starting to receive money in our club account via the Clynk bottle-and-can redemption program in cooperation with Hannaford supermarkets. A supply of recycling bags and bar code stickers, both necessary to participate in this ongoing fundraiser, will be available to members at each meeting and kept in our locked storage cabinet at Quigley’s.
BOWLING FOR VETS — We have more than 20 lane sponsors, at $100 each, for this Sunday’s annual fundraiser at the East Greenbush Bowling Center. At least five volunteers are needed to staff the registration desk over two shifts. In addition to SRC Rotarians and family members, we are expecting contingents from Rotaract and Bell Top School. We have promoted the event on the club weboite, on social media, and in ads in Our Towne and The Advertiser.
ROTARACT UPDATE — Becky Raymond reported that she, John Justino, and Phil Nasca attended a meeting of the new Rotaract club at the UAlbany School of Public Health. That group is planning a fundraiser dinner event for Thursday, March 22, and have invited SRC to attend. About 15 of our members indicated their intent to do so; we will not hold our scheduled meeting on that date to allow more of our members to attend the Rotaract dinner. The fundraiser will include a silent auction. There is no charge for the dinner, although donations will, of course, be appreciated. The event will run from 5 to 7 p.m. … Becky also repeated a request to pass along copies of the latest edition of The Rotarian magazine, which is the Rotaract issue, to her for redistribution to Rotaract members. And, Rotaract again expressed interest in working with SRC on our various projects on an ongoing basis.
CLYNK RECYCLING — It was suggested that we should maintain a supply of Clynk recycling bags and bar code stickers in the locked cabinet off the Quigley’s meeting room so members in need of them can conveniently pick them up. We also will make bags available to breakfast meeting members who do not participate in dinner meetings.
ROTARACT — Members are asked to save their newest issues of The Rotarian magazine, which is the Rotaract issue. We plan to give the copies to members of our new Rotaract club. (We have long had a link on our website to the online version of the magazine. 
All the new committees were represented at tonight’s meeting, and there were lively discussions by each group about goals and initiatives.
