The First 100 Days of Our Rotary Year

Rotarians of Unlimited Opportunities,

We have come to the end of the first quarter of a Rotary year or as is said in some of the management circles the first 100 days. Literacy and basic education month has now passed and we start a new theme month.

We must continue to remember that illiteracy lies at the root of poverty, ranking as one of the prime impediments to earning a living and having a productive life. Some 1.1 billion of the world population of 7.8 billion (with three-fifths of them women) do not have the literacy and numeracy skills needed to hold a job or get a better one.

Basic education is pertinent in helping people become self-sufficient as a way of fighting poverty.

However, the opportunity to grow literacy and basic education during the month was challenging as a result of the pandemic as various learning institutions remained closed. Learning only happened in those institutions that were privileged to have access to digital assets. Despite this challenge, some opportunities were still exploited by various Rotary clubs in our District.

I was able to visit clubs, both physically and digitally, with many examples of Rotarians making a difference in communities by investing resources to improve school infrastructure and learning processes. They also engaged in capacity building to accommodate learning when institutions eventually open in a Co-COVID environment. It was still an incredible month – Rotarians have innovative ways of reaching and serving communities.

Good progress on membership

The Rotary Club of Mwatate received its charter.  Congratulations to the Charter Club President, the DGSR Ashok Anand, AG Eric Mwashighadi, and all those involved in making it happen.

We have also experienced a ramped-up growth in numbers in the past month with clubs around the District actively inducting new members. My earnest desire is to grow our numbers in the District by 50% by the end of this Rotary year.  I also hope we can increase all clubs to a minimum of 25 members in the next few months.

The District Governor’s PHF challenge is coming up well. We have over 30 Rotarians who have fully paid for the challenge and many others who are actively paying up in installments. The challenge is open to the first-time contributors, those seeking to be multiple Paul Harris Fellows and Rotaractors.

The challenge is on a first-come, first-serve basis, and up to a maximum of 100 Rotarians.

I will award a Paul Harris Fellow to the club president with the highest number of PHF challenge uptakes. If such a club has more than twelve PHFs during the year, I will award the president with an additional PHF. Should the second-ranking club exceed nine PHFs, the president shall receive a PHF award.

I encourage clubs to take up the challenge as it ends on 30th November 2020 for Rotarians and 31st January for Rotaractors.

Zoom! Zoom!

In working with the new norm of digital meetings, I have now lost count on the number of hours I have spent on Rotary digital (or Zoom) meetings.  I am well on the way to concluding the individual club “visits’ to meet the boards and discuss their progress on their annual plans and also attend the club assemblies. Despite being digital, the meetings have been intimate as we listen and help clubs on a personalized basis.

In a big departure from the norm, this virtual meeting opportunity has made it possible for me to have various District Exco members attend and who can answer or challenge club boards on specific areas in their specialization.

It has also been great having the District Governor-Elect Alex Nyaga and District Governor Nominee Azeb Asrat (who with me are jointly known as the Troika) attend as it ensures seamless leadership in the District.

I started my physical visits in the last month. These are also being done differently this year. Instead of visiting each club individually, I will be making each visit to a cluster of clubs centered around an Assistant Governor or maybe two together. These will be fellowship visits and the more the merrier. I will also visit a project or two that each group of clubs will select based on the value that my visit to the project (s) will add.  

I visited the Coast and spent the first day with the Rotary Clubs of Voi and Taveta who arranged that we all meet at Mwatate to celebrate the RC Mwatate charter ceremony as the key event.  The event was followed by a joint meeting the next day in Watamu.  The Rotary Clubs of Malindi and Kilifi came together to work with the host club Watamu to invigorate its membership drive. 

The third day was a whirlwind of three engagements starting with a breakfast meeting with the Rotary Clubs of Mombasa North Coast and Mtwapa immediately followed by a fitness fellowship to work off the breakfast. I then had a wonderful lunch with the Rotary Clubs of Bahari, Bamburi, Kilindini, and Nyali where we discussed the structure of the District and what opportunities this offered for the clubs. The day ended with the ‘Super Duper” induction of 25 members into the Rotary Club of Mombasa – the second oldest club in Kenya and the third oldest in Africa.

This was the jewel of a phenomenal induction of 54 new members during the Coast visit.

Many thanks to all the clubs I visited last month for your efforts in preparing for the visits. I was invigorated by the positive energy from clubs and their leaderships, and as a District Governor, I cannot ask for more!

We also continue on our quest for fiduciary probity in all clubs and wish to remind club presidents and treasurers to ensure that club accounts are audited no later than 60 days from their departure from office at the end of each Rotary year. Also, of importance is that we become even better stewards of our District and Global Grants by reporting back on time. Our strength will be in our accountability and transparency.

October is Rotary’s Economic and Community Development Month

This month takes on a more important meaning as across the world economies and businesses start the slow recovery from the devastating impacts visited upon us by the coronavirus pandemic. We must join hands with our partners and other stakeholders in the communities where we live and serve, to chart ways that can rapidly repair the damage done to our economies and communities by the pandemic.

We have been at the forefront of responding to the containment and we must now turn our attention to recovery. Despite the harsh times, we will also celebrate what we have done to empower our communities economically and envision how to further community development together with our strategic partners. 

It also embodies the aspect of service to humanity.

It is indeed encouraging to see clubs in the District join hands to empower the youth and women economically.  I encourage us to continually join efforts towards poverty eradication. We can take advantage of existing platforms to reach communities and train and empower the public to take advantage of opportunities that are opening up as things slowly return to normal.

With our ever-amazing innovations and creativity, our economic and community development service opportunities are unlimited.

From my wife, Terry and I, have a blissful month with Unlimited Opportunities!

DG Patrick Obath,

Rotary International District 9212