Dear ROTIans.........welcome to a new Rotary Year.....

Please pardon the brevity of this month's report; it seems like only yesterday that Glo and I returned from the RI Convention in Los Angeles, California. We arrived in the Philippines on June 20th, and it took six days to acclimate our bodies to the 15 hr time zone difference.

Since my earlier emails to the ROTI and Rotarians list provided reports of the RI Convention, I will not discuss at length any of those issues. Our ROTI booth, decorated with 4 ROTI banners designed by Gloria, featured the ROTI logo 'cleaned up' by Tord Elfwendah, added a nice touch to the display. About 25 ROTIans brought their club banners to display in the booth and will be used again in Birmingham at the RI Convention in 2009. Our booth stayed very busy with friends greeting one another, new members finding out what ROTI can do for them and their Rotary activity, those just wandering by with questions and picking up most of the 1,000 ROTI brochures and cards we had printed. Of course there were lots of business cards being exchanged for followups. I have about 50 to reply to, and am sure that those at the convention have an equal, if not greater, number.

This is the time of the year when Rotary International, its districts, and clubs, all change officers. Hopefully this will be a smooth transition for all those involved. With the annual turn-overs, continuity of goals and objectives become a critical issue. Your ROTI Chair however will continue for another year, since our By-Laws have stated the office of chair will be a two year term......Gee; my duties would be finished if we only had a one year term. Smile. Seriously though, it has been a pleasure to have served these first 12 months as ROTI Chair. I would like to think it has been successful so far. We have had a few bumps in the road, but most of these were ironed out at the BOD level, and the general membership was not aware of the anxiety and turmoil caused.

The one major change will be felt by some is the passing of the amendment to the ROTI By-Laws which requires all members of ROTI to sign up for at least one of our listservs. Let me repeat that ..... "All members of ROTI must sign up for at least one of our listservs."
ROTI values our membership, and feels that to sign up and not receive any of the messages posted to our listservs is equilivant to joining a Rotary club and not attending meetings. We do ask that you post, but hope you will occassionally feel inspired to do so, but that by receiving the emails you will be more enriched and aware of the activities of ROTI members, and feel that you are a part of an important Rotary Global Networking Group.

You may want to go to your personal membership file, and decide if you want to be a member of the Serious Group, a moderated group where only Rotary subjects are allowed; the General Group, unmoderated and like many Rotary meetings, open discussions on many topics take place; or the ROTI-Tech group, designed for discussions of computer technology and software.

For those of you that have asked, we will allow members to go to the "no mail' mode when traveling. The "no mail" mode will be noted however, and after one month you may be asked to go back to receiving your emails unless there are mitigated circumstances which require you to remain in the "no mail' mode.

I am looking forward to the next 12 months as your ROTI chair and hope the ROTI Board of Directors continue to serve your needs. Personally, the our new DG made me the District Fellowships Chair which will provide me the opportunity to share information about ROTI and the many other Rotary Networking Groups. RIP (now PRIP Wilk) and PRI Cliff spoke to many of the Fellowship chairs in Los Angeles and said "you guys are the best kept secret in Rotary." I feel it is time that we become a more important part of Rotary International.

Ron