Chris's Comments

I am on an airplane right now, but can write up a short summary of our board retreat this last weekend.  The meeting took place at my house and I bribed (I mean served) the board members egg casserole, monkey bread and a grape salad along with coffee and juice.  

 

We got down to business a little after 9:00 am and first worked through the constitution and bylaws for Mesa West Rotary.  Ed Koeneman mentioned that this work began in his term, which was 2015-2016.  I am happy to announce that we worked through both documents and have agreed to a final version which will be distributed to the club shortly.  I want to thank everyone that had a hand in this process for over three years.  This was a lot of work, but we finally made it. I believe we have some great documents to hold us for the next several years.

 

We also came up with a balanced budget thanks to many helping hands on that as well.  There are some announcements to be made regarding this that I prefer to do in person at the next club meeting that I am able to attend.  Everyone should know that we are doing our best to be fiscally responsible while providing our members with the utmost value for their membership dues.

 

We plan to have a couple of interesting fund raisers this year along with our usual sponsorship fund raising activities.  I believe this will allow all of us to participate in the support of our club and the great things that we are able to do through Rotary.  

 

New members and membership engagement was a topic of discussion.  We plan to have more activities that help our members to understand all of the facets of Rotary and Rotary International.  

 

Jim Schmidt mentioned as we called the meeting to a close, that he was very impressed that I finished the meeting with 2 minutes to spare.  We were done by 12:58.  That was four hours of great discussion and much work, but I feel we are in a great place at the beginning of our year and I am excited to share more with you soon.