In this photo are President of Houlton Rotary Club, Jane Torres, Terry Thomas, Woodstock, New Brunswick Rotarian and the District Governor from Muncton, New Brunswick, Wayne Wornes with the Rotary International banner.

There were several guests at the July 13, 2015 Houlton meeting. Kelley Ashley was Elizabeth Dulin’s guest, Tom Donahue Junior, twin of Matthew Donahue was his brother’s guest and Terry Thomas joined the District Governor and Wayne’s wife Sylvie.

Scott Dionne and Matthew Nightingale gave a five minute presentation before Wayne’s talk. They are working on the speaker line up for the next year and are preparing guidelines for programs to help Rotarians with their guest speakers. They will create a data base for programs and a schedule. Emails will be forthcoming with their progress.

Wayne talked about his journey in Rotary, first joining in 2002 and now District Governor. He is visiting all of the Rotary clubs in District 7810. Houlton is the 6th of 44 that he will visit. The organization is in terrific shape and he just needs to keep steering. President Ravi from India is promoting the theme “Be a gift to the world” as shown on the banner above. Ravi promotes the idea of “pay it forward” in giving to the world. Ravi is encouraging clubs to think outside of the box as we go forward.

Wayne promoted the idea of working with Terry Thomas since he reports for the Houlton, Woodstock and Florenceville Rotary Clubs. Also, Floyd Rockell from Fort Kent is a good person to reach out to. Rotary is the first network organization founded in Chicago by Paul Harris as a way to be supportive of other service minded people. There is always a reason why people join Rotary. The question is why do they stay. That is a key question to keep membership active. There is a new position being promoted called “Public Image Chair”. Reaching out to other clubs is helpful if you can share programs and fund raising events. Wayne ended his talk by promoting the conference in Muncton this fall September 11th through the 13th. There will be a culinary theme, such as an Acadia Kitchen Pantry.

Meeting with the Board of Directors after the club meeting, Wayne stressed networking and gave the group names of folks who would be most helpful in our efforts such as Dawn Way. The site Club Runner on the internet is a good place to share stories and newspaper articles. Wayne suggested an Interact Club for Houlton and Amy Hocking is supposed to be working on this. Rotaract is for university students and RYLA is another way to involve youth.