President's Pen
Happy May Day! May Day is celebrated on May 1 and traditionally included a dance around the May Pole. I tried to garner some enthusiasm for a May Day Dance at Rotary this morning…but was unable to get much support! Ah well, I guess the breakfast was more enticing!
One of the really nice parts of being President this year has been to get to know all of the club members a little better and to meet more Rotarians outside our Club. Working with different Rotarians from other clubs this year had allowed me to see that while we are all Rotarians, we do things differently. Some clubs are larger than ours, some more formal, some older…we are all different. The common thread though, when identified as part of the Bluffton Rotary Club, the response is always: “Oh, you’re part of the fun club”.
District Governor Ed Duryea attended and spoke during our 25th Anniversary Celebration on Sunday, April 28th. He acknowledged our many accomplishments, past, present and on-going, and spoke very highly about our club. In the end though, Ed said we are hard-working and do a tremendous amount for our community and abroad, all while having fun. Not such a bad brand to have for our Bluffton Rotary Club, I think…to be respected for all the good we do and have fun at the same time. I hope you are all having fun this year. I am.
Many thanks again to Barry Connor, Mary O’Neill, Cindy Owens and Deb Karambelas for organizing such a nice, befitting event for our 25th Anniversary Celebration and to Mary Connor for lovely flowers. It was a wonderful and special evening.
Many thanks to Laphanie Banks, Mary O’Neill, Sandy Graves and Rodney Vaughn for organizing and creating our first ever Bluffton Rotary Business Connection & Networking Event on Wednesday of last week. Once again, it was a fun, festive and productive event! Everyone had a chance for networking and discovering what different members of the club do, in addition to some wonderful refreshments! This will surely be an annual or semi-annual event going forward!
The 35th Annual Bluffton Village Festival is right around the corner, Saturday May 11, from 10:00am – 4:00pm. This has grown to be a major fund-raiser for us. Once again a fun event and raising enough money to do some real good in our community! We hope everyone will come on out and enjoy the day and help with the Bluffton Village Festival too!
So, in closing: we have accomplished so much in 25 years. The demographics of the Bluffton Rotary Club and our community have changed. Through it all, we continue to put “Service Above Self”. Bring on the next 25 years!
Thanks for your continued support of our club!
Yours in Rotary,
Dot