#19 District Conference Day 2

The plenary session in the morning focused on membership, Bevin Wall woke us up to the declining membership of Rotary in North America. He reminded us to use Rotary Resources to find ways to retain members, especially focusing on members who have been Rotarians for 2-5 years. The lunch speaker Jill Fonte discussed "Wouldn't it be Great..." if everyone acted as Rotarians. At the conclusion of her speech she told the audience that she was becoming a Rotarian, having attended 3 meetings and her application filed with the New Hope, PA club. Congratulations. How often have we had a speaker talk about the great things Rotary does, when they themselves are already living a Rotarian life, but know it. Congratulations to Jill for joining to quote Jill's quote "And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world"

The afternoon for me was all about Polio Plus, PDG Jerry Fields, the Polio Chair thanked me for gong to all the clubs in 7600 to remind them of the Polio Plus Challenge. In the plenary Sessions he updated where we were with Polio Plus and ways of raising funds without taking from other club projects or directly from club members. I spoke to the groups briefly on my experience traveling to India and the upcoming NID. The attendees had the opportunity to share different ideas of what they were doing. The Chester Club even brought "Chester Bacon" their Piggy Bank to the conference and had him throughout the conference collecting. Chester even competed in the mask contest with the Mardi Gras theme. We also reminded the clubs that I would be visiting each club. After the first session several clubs came up to schedule my visit with a presentation. Congratulations to Jeanne Wall of the Richmond Club for the best mask "Mardi Bra" and to Pete Adler of Chester for winning the most beads contest.