President's Message - May 2, 2014

 Well we have returned from the Rotary District 6900 Conference in Destin Florida.  We had 22 Rotarians from our club and several spouses make the trek to the panhandle where we really had a great time.  I encourage you to consider it next year.  If you have not heard yet, our very own Laurie and Rory Young will be co-hosting the event at Jekyll Island, Georgia.  Stay tuned for details.
 
Where to start.   Mike Lowry was the chairperson in charge of registration, which he carried out flawlessly.  I know I personally fielded a dozen or more compliments on how well that whole process went.  From stuffing 700+ goodie bags the day before to checking in 700 people to handing out 700 bottles of Coca-Cola and coordinating the volunteers from our club to man the desk all weekend.  Great job Mike. That was an awesome undertaking and a great success.
 
The “Museum” formerly known as the “House of Friendship” was set up and decorated to perfection to highlight the Rotary theme as well as display the many great things we did as a club over the last year.  So many people helped out all weekend I hesitate to point them out in fear of missing someone but I do know the Museum was taken on by Ann Hart, Karen Hipes, Sharon Lowry and Janet Ulrich.  I know Mike Hart helped as well so a big thank you to all of them.
 
Friday I attended a lunch for club Presidents and Assistant Governors (Bill Weeks).  At this lunch District Governor Blake McBurney recognized clubs for their successes and handed out awards in fourteen categories.  Of those fourteen categories Alpharetta Rotary came in first eight times and second once for our Division.   Two of those awards came with $500 cash for the club to use in its future projects and we won them both.  No other club came even close to this ratio.

• Best Club Bulletin                         Runner-up
• Most New Members                     Winner
• Most New Members by %            Winner
• Best Member Retention               Winner
• Best Vocational Service Project     Winner
• Best Youth Service                       Winner
• Best Family of Rotary Event         Winner
• Best Community Service Project    Winner  $500 Prize to the club
• Best International Project             Winner  $500 Prize to the club

On Sunday morning they awarded runner up and winners for five categories.   Our club won 4 of the 5.  Unprecedented to take that many but to me it’s a strong testament to the amount of work we all did last year and the number of lives we affected through all of that hard work is staggering.  
 

• Membership                                Winner
• Club Admin Service                    Winner
• Community Service                     Winner
• International Service                   Winner

The final awards handed out Sunday were runner up and winner for Club of the Year.  Yes we did. 

Alpharetta Rotary won CLUB OF THE YEAR!!! 

This is the first time in 31 years our club has won this award and I have no doubt with the makeup and momentum of this club we have more of these in our future.  We will display the awards and our new banner at Fridays meeting.  I cannot begin to tell you how proud I am of everyone in  this club.  This was no small task and it took everyone contributing at a high level to even be considered for this award.  This is very cool.  

See you Friday.
 
Yours in Rotary,
 
Dan