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ROTARY CLUB OF
Dunwoody

ROTARY CLUB OF Dunwoody

SPEAKER THIS WEEK: DG Alec Smythe

State of the District

District Resolutions. The Resolutions Committee is working on the Resolutions for the conference. We don’t plan to do as many of the usual round of celebratory resolutions as usual. However the clubs will need to approve the resolutions that govern our district. There are some minor changes this year and one substantial change, namely the membership of the Nominating Committee. Previously that committee was made up of the three immediately preceding governors, plus three members chosen by the serving governor. The Planning & Advisory Committee has proposed changing the Nominating Committee to include all past District 6900 governors active in a club in our district. I strongly support this change, as I believe it will add more perspectives to the process and de-pressurize it some.

Sheffield Gala. Registration is now open for our annual Sheffield Gala honoring all current and past Sheffield winners and sponsored by the Americus Rotary club, home of the Sheffield family. Full details are available at https://rotary6900.org/v2/event/3103.

3Q Financials. I've attached the District's Profit and Loss Statement versus budget and Balance Sheet through March 31, 2018. You will see that the district is in very strong shape, financially. Remember that our net income tends to peak at this time of year, since we have already collected most of the revenue from the District Conference, but won't incur the related expenses until next quarter.

Unpaid Rotary and District Invoices: None!

Club Assembly - Fund Raising

At the Club Assembly on 04/13/18, the issue of fund raising was discussed.

President Rick Otness gave the Club an overview of efforts over the past 16 months (since December of 2016) to identify potential new fund raising opportunities. Then Bill Woulfin made a clear distinction between fund raising and the spending of any funds raised. We need to do something about how the Club spends the results of its fund raising efforts, but that was a topic for another day.

Then President Elect Rick Woods gave a presentation on the economics of a Community BBQ. The members present during the assembly asked pointed and insightful questions. Rick Woods shared the revenue & cost spreadsheet which indicated that a conservative estimate had revenues at $152,200, with expected costs of $51,850, leaving an expected net of $100,350.

Some questions raised could not be immediately answered, but most were. Randall Bowman the President of Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS), was available to answer questions about Community BBQs. By the end of the meeting (around 8:25 pm) those that were in attendance, voted to indicate the sense of the meeting on two issues.

The sense of the meeting was:

1.We should work towards a single fund raiser over time, possibly doing away with Governors Ball (GB) as a fund raiser, if the BBQ is successful enough. (vote: 29 in favor out of 44 attendees, ~66%)

2.Willing to support Community BBQ in fall of 2018 (vote: 43 out of the 44 attendees will support, ~98%)

​End Polio Now Campaign

Ending Polio is the number 1 goal of Rotary International, and now thanks to President Rick Otness also a priority for our Club. His vision is to have every member make some sort of contribution (whether large or small).

He gave the Club the following update on the campaign to get 100% of the members to make a donation to the Club's campaign to End Polio Now .

Remember that any donations between $100 and $1,000 will be matched by a Marie Crean and be reflected in the donor's total Rotary Foundation giving. When someone donates $150, their Rotary Foundation giving will go up by $300 (their $150 donation plus Marie's matching donation in their name). If you are close to becoming a Paul Harris Scholar, a major donor, or just completing your annual Paul Harris Fellow gift of $1,000, Marie's generosity will allow you to get twice the credit for your donation.

Donating is easy. Just follow this link

https://dunwoodyrotary.org/v2/contribution/contribute?project=2975

It will take you to the safe, encrypted website site (powered by Scripts) where you can donate by credit card. It will automatically be deposited into the DRCF account, and a record sent to the club's Treasurer. Any size donation will be accepted. Our goal is to have every member of the Club make a donation (whether large or small). We want the whole club to have donated something by May 1, 2018.

by Kate Keator
​Rotary Club of Dunwoody’s Very Own Peace Fellow

Did you know that the Rotary Club of Dunwoody has sponsored the first (and only at this point) Peace Fellow in District 6900? Her name is Kate Keator and before becoming a Peace Fellow Kate worked at the Carter Center. Since September of 2017, Kate has been studying about peace and conflict resolution at the University of Bradford in England. She will be visiting the Club on May 18 and will provide a brief update about her year as a Rotary Peace Fellow. Kate recently sent this summary of her experience.

"My time of taught courses at University of Bradford is a quickly coming to a close -- I only have four weeks till the end of the semester and four essays to complete! My classes here have been thoroughly enriching, not solely due to the lecturers but also to the wide range of diversity among the students. Many students here have years of experience in the practitioner field (e.g. a UN Peacekeeper from Bangladesh, a Ugandan Member of Parliament who also runs her own female empowerment NGO, a security and arms researcher from an organisation in Columbia that helped shape public policy) and often bring new perspectives and insight to our class discussions. I have really enjoyed taking a step back to explore the big ideas around peace, conflict, and conflict resolution.

Concerning Rotary, it has been amazing. I really love my group of Rotary Fellows -- we are diverse and not afraid to debate each other about issues of the world but can still grab a beer and explore a nearby English village together. Actually, I went to Bogota, Columbia at the beginning of December to attend a peace technology conference called Build UP and stayed with the parents of one of my Rotary Fellows. They showed me around Bogota which was wonderful. Plus the peace technology conference was absolutely amazing -- there are some really amazing ideas being tested out in Colombia. That trip was completely funded through my conference stipend provided by Rotary.

At the beginning of this year, Rotary hosted a trip for us to go to Norway to meet the Uppsala Fellows and visit prominent peace institutions based in Oslo. Here is a blog post I wrote for our RPF (Rotary Peace Fellows) blog about that:http://blogs.brad.ac.uk/rotary-peace-centre/oslo-v.... In February we attended a Rotary Peace Conference in Coventry, UK were a few of us (including myself) ended up leading some discussions about the usefulness of the Rotary Peace Fellowship and how to invest in peace. It was really insightful since it reminded me how few people in Rotary know about the fellowship and the "output" of is unclear to many. I have done quite a few speaking engagements at various Rotary Clubs in the northern UK which has been a great way for me to raise awareness about RPF, talk about peace technology and Syria, and practice my public speaking skills! The Rotary clubs here in the UK are quite different from what I've seen in the US -- small and fairly informal.

This summer I will be conducting my Applied Field Experience with Search for Common Ground in Beirut, working on their Track II Mediation on Syria and helping with their business development projects promoting private-public partnerships for peacebuilding initiatives in Lebanon. I start in the middle of the June and I believe the internship will be about three months. During that time I will also be working on my dissertation... eek! I have chosen a topic but need to start collecting the literature and writing things down. I will be looking at the role that social media played in changing the conflict actors in the Syrian conflict and how conflict analysis has changed due to access to big data, using the Syrian conflict as an example. I am really excited to dive in but it is quite a bit to do.

Also, I forgot to mention that the Rotary Peace Centre - University of Bradford Facebook page has uploaded quite a bit about our travels. Here are a few links to its recent posts that include me:

https://www.facebook.com/UBRotaryPeace/posts/60036... (pictures from our trip to France and Belgium to visit WWI memorials)

https://www.facebook.com/UBRotaryPeace/videos/5999... (video of me and colleague Natalia)

https://www.facebook.com/UBRotaryPeace/posts/59329... (from a crisis simulation we did in the quaint town of Haworth where the Bronte sisters lived)

Finally, I am an "ambassador" for the Institute of Economics and Peace which is a partnership IEP has with Rotary International to educate them more about IEP's quantitative measuring of peace and conflict. I worked with them briefly when I was at The Carter Center and I am so excited to be learning more about how they produce their Global Peace Index and getting a chance to speak on their behalf."

Thirsty Thursday

Where: Dunwoody Tavern, 5488 Chamblee Dunwoody Road

When: Thursday, 4/26/18, 5:30 PM

Questions: Cathie Brumfield, cell 404 668 6693

Join us!

DISTRICT CONFERENCE

For full conference details and to register, visit https://rotary6900.org/conference. STILL NOT TOO LATE TO REGISTER.

Service Oscars. Voting is now open! Go to to rotary6900.org and click on the green Vote For Project Favorites button. You will be impressed by the nominees. Remember, you won't be able to vote for a particular category/flight combination if your club has a nominated project in that category/flight. But you should vote for all the others. Please also motivate all your club members to vote for their favorites.

FROM THE DESK OF THE NEWSLETTER EDITOR

Send your Newsletter submission to:

rcdnewsletter@yahoo.com

Our Club's Weekly Newsletter typically consists of:

·Speaker bio

·New Member Name(s)

·Featured article(s) (regarding events, service projects, or on-going topics general club administrative items, etc..).

·Foundation initiatives or other topics of interest to Members and with value for our Club archives.

·Announcements (seeking volunteers, advertising service projects, etc.)

·For Your Calendar (Club and other activities we encourage members and/or their spouses to attend, including Family of Rotary events

·Member News (birthdays, anniversaries, accomplishments, Caring Hands)

Please keep in mind key components to include with your submission:

·Title of your article

·Description of the activity

·Dates, Time, Location, deadline, etc... (especially for upcoming events)

·Key Points of Contact Information and/or a link to reference website for details

·Names and/or headcount of Rotarians (and others) participating,

·The reaction of those benefiting and the numbers of those benefiting.

·Picture(s)

Please also tell me the number of weeks would you like the article published.
Finally, the deadline for articles to run in the current week are Mondays by 5 p.m.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me!

Thank you!
Tania López

rotary_tls@outlook.com