District Governor Speaks
Posted by Lynn Droescher
on Oct 04, 2011
Last Tuesday, our District Governor, Mike Blevins, joined Sooner Rotary to share his goals for the district this year. Mike has been a lawyer for 39 years in Sayre, OK and was president of his club twice and in 2008, he led the GSE team to Denmark. Mike is married with two children and 5 grandchildren.Mike attended a Governors Dinner provided by Sooner Rotary Monday night.
He praised the district in sustaining their memberships, even though some clubs lost membership, the district as a whole has maintained their numbers. He spoke about International President, Kalyan Banerjee's theme of promoting strength within the Rotary family and developing strong members. Also look for ways to engage younger Rotarians to keep them involved.
Concerns were raised about the district keeping up its membership requirement to remain a district. Currently we have 34 clubs and over 1350 members. To remain a district we must keep a minimum of 32 clubs and 1200 members.
One of his goals this year is to encourage some communities without Rotary to build clubs. These communities include Lindsey, Oklahoma and other smaller cities. Mike boasted that Hobart increased their membership from 8 to 13 by asking their spouses to join the club!
Possible trends being discussed within Rotary as a whole include dismissing attendance requirements and meeting at a service project as a substitute for one of a club's weekly meetings.
Our club was complimented for its active involvement in the community and Mike discussed our upcoming grant to provide mini-libraries to poor school children in Colima, Mexico.
As the year draws closer to April, Mike wanted to remind everyone that the District Conference will be held in Weatherford, OK. They will host a barbecue held at the Tom Stafford space museum on the Friday before the conference. We are all encouraged to attend. Any interested Rotarians are welcome to join his committee to plan and prepare for the event.