Lee Holmes introduced District Governor Jim Erickson who was making his official visit to Mesa West Rotary Cllub.  Jim is a member of the Superstition Mountain Rotary Club.  He has been a Rotarian for over 40  years, and has over 40 years of perfect attendance.  

 

One of the goals for the RI President this year is to have each club donate $1,500 or more to the polio campaign.  DG Jim knows that would be very difficult for smaller clubs in District 5495, so his goal is that individual Rotarians will donate $50 to the campaign.  He also stressed it is important to support the annual fund of The Rotary Foundation, noting that at Mesa West, he is "preaching to the choir" since Mesa West was the number 2 club in the District in 2017-18 with per capita giving of $551.85.  

 

DG Jim had some props with him to promote his District Conference  to be held June 20-22, 2019 in Scottsdale.  He has a video about the conference on his YouTube Channel.  He wants to see the conference be something fun for Rotarians to top off a successful year with celebrating good times together.  Friday night will have dinner and dancing with Southwest Surfers, a local Beach Boys tribute group with Beach Volleyball going on the opposite side of the meeting facility.  Saturday afternoon will feature "Rotary's Got Talent."  Saturday evening will feature hospitality suites with an End of the Year Blowout Toga Party in the District Governor's Suite.  

 

Our District Governor said he flunked nominee training, as he had one more year of training than the average DG.  He said he is a third generation Rotarian.  His father was a Rotarian, but when he changed jobs, he was booted out of his club because he "lost his classification."  Later, when the family was living in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, a local Rotarian approached his father wanting his business to support a Rotary fundraiser.  He did support the fundraiser after coercing the Rotarian to sponsor him as a member in the local club.  A few years following his father's death, the club invited Jim to be a member.

 

Polio is DG Jim's Rotary passion.  When he was about 10, he had a hospital stay for an emergency appendectomy.  While there, while he was recovering, he had to walk around the pediatric ward to rebuild his strength.  He remembers seeing a girl whose face was pale and her hair very stringy.  That was all he could remember about her.  The rest of her body was in an iron lung. 

 

As an older youth, when attending camp, one of Jim's camp counsellors was Rick Litke.  40 years later, Jim and Rick met again.  Rick Litke recognized Jim and reminded him of the camp where they had first known each other.  Their paths had crossed again because Rick Litke was the Rotary District Governor and was making his official club visit to the Menomonee Falls Rotary Club.  

 

Jim had the privilege of participating in a Rotary polio immunization trip to India.  He recited some statistics.  Even though we are very close to eradicating polio, we still have a very long way to go.  Unfortunately, there have been more cases at this point in 2018 than last year, with 19 reported cases so far.  In the entire year of 2017, there were 22 cases.  We are up 72% this year.  Pakistan has vowed not to be the last country to be polio free and they are making good progress.  Afghanistan is very difficult.  It is very difficult to know if they have reached all children.  The virus can be present without symptoms.

 

For Rotarians who wish to honor the District Governor's hope to have each district Rotarian donate $50 for polio eradication, and excellent time to do so would be October 24 - World Polio Day.  He also encouraged Rotarians to support The Rotary Foundation Annual Fund.  He would like to see more Rotarians support TRF through a Rotary Direct account which can be set up on the RI website.  repeating donations can be scheduled through a My Rotary account.

 

Membership in the District appears to be going up a bit this year even though we lost five clubs which closed during the 2017-18 year.  During that same period, three new clubs were formed.  Even though the total membership in the new clubs was greater than the total membership in the five clubs that closed, the district was down by 81 members at the close of that year.  Statistically, clubs will lose 10% of their membership each year.  To grow, a club needs to take in more members than they are likely to lose.  Jim told us we need to ask friends and associates to join Rotary, reminding everyone that "No" is an answer.  If you invite someone, you might get an answer of "No," but you also might get a "Yes."  If you don't ask, you won't get an answer.  Young people often don't get asked because Rotarians think they are too young.  During a visit to Lake Havasu City, DG Jim met a 19-year-old Rotarian.  It is hard for RINOs (Rotarians in Name Only) to get new members when they tell prospects they have lunch every week and sit at the same table with the same guys every week.  An active-engaged Rotarian who explains to a prospect that their club is a group of local professionals who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves is much more likely to get "Yes" for an answer.

 

Before DG Jim visits a club, he asks the Rotary elf who in that club deserves to be honored with one of his special commemorative coins, which he had made to give out to special Rotarians during his DG year.  One side features the District logo.  The other side features an image of Superstition Mountain.  In Mesa West Rotary, the elf told him there were three members deserving this recognition.  The grand finale of the meeting was his presentation of coins to: