Happy New Year!
 
The saying goes, “Time flies when you’re having fun”. I think I can say that’s very true for me over the past six months. As your District Governor, I have visited all but three clubs and have enjoyed meeting all of you, getting to know more about your clubs and your communities.
Each club has a little different way of managing their meetings, community events, fundraisers, etc. It has been wonderful to see these differences and the collaboration because the one common underlying aspect is that everyone was having FUN! And that everyone is so proud to be a Rotarian.  That makes me very happy and I feel blessed to be part of what has been created here.
 
 We are already almost half way through January and I have some exciting news to share. As Rotarians, we all know that membership is a very important aspect to our success.  I have the honor to report that as of December 31, our worldwide membership has grown by 11,394 new members.  That gives us a new membership number of 1,206,501 Rotarians!
That is amazing news – Rotary is here to stay and will continue to make a difference throughout the world.
 
As exciting as that is on a global level, we must congratulate ourselves locally.  Our District is part of Zone 28, which includes 11 other Districts. Of the total 12 Districts, ours is the only one that has shown a membership increase since July 1, 2018. The report that was sent out this morning, January 11, from Rotary International shows that our District is proud to report that we have 35 new Rotarians which puts our District membership at 1,943.
 
Congratulations to us!  This shows that there is truly pride and passion in what we are doing and that we aren’t afraid to recruit and teach our fellow friends and family members all there is to know about Rotary.
Share this with your club members and encourage them to Be The Inspiration to continue to build our District!
Please continue all you do in Rotary for our District and your clubs.
DG Julie