Watch DG Jeff's latest YouTube episode to capture the monthly theme here.
Be sure to keep you eye on all of Jeff's online content, plus the contributions of members from all over our great district both here in the newsletter and on social media.
Wishing you a healthy and marvelous holiday season!
Together we are one.
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Stay in the loop with District news by following on Facebook: @RotaryDistrict5190
Be sure to tag the District in your club's Facebook posts so everyone can see what you're up to.
Need help? Reach out to the District PI Chair: shauna@dmorris.com
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District Grant Funds Are Spoken For!
Congratulations to the clubs which have successfully received District Grants for the many projects underway across the district – and even around the world!
As of December 5, 2022 all District Grant Funds have been allocated for the 2022-23 Rotary year! That’s a total of $93,300 given to clubs to match their own funds for Rotarian-led projects that will benefit thousands of people!
Thanks to our District Grants Committee for the hours they have spent helping clubs write successful grants, and thanks to all those club grant writers for the outstanding effort in writing the grants to make them clear and complete. Our job now is to complete the projects and write up the final reports.
This is the earliest that grant funds have all been claimed in recent years, and shows that clubs are anxious to serve their communities, get active again and grow now that we are past the pandemic.
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Congratulations Larry!! The tradition of outstanding District leadership continues.
Wishing you the best for 2025-2026.
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You're Invited!
The Rotary Club of Incline Village is having a joint holiday party with the morning Incline club on December 13th from 6-9 pm, and you're invited too!!
Event will be hosted at Bowl Incline, entry is $75 per person.
If you are over 40 then you might remember a 1980’s commercial for the product Krazy Glue. In the commercial a construction worker holds onto his hard hat and is suspended from a steel beam by only the power of one tiny dot of Krazy Glue. Wouldn’t it be nice if that’s all it took for member retention? Unfortunately, it takes a bit more that a drop of Rotary to keep new members, but with the right amount of inspiration and involvement any club can build the bonds that last for many years.
1. Get new members involved immediately.
Most new Rotarians will make a decision about whether to stay in Rotary within the first few months of becoming a member. Make sure that they are engaged weekly and that they have a mentor. The mentors should introduce the new member to other members at weekly meetings and also invite them to attend club events or projects. Another great way to keep them involved is through the 12 Rotary Letters system.
2. Take time on a regular basis to inform your membership about where your club is heading and how they can be a part of it.
Rotarians need to buy into your club and it’s projects. It has been proven that if individuals feel that they are part of the decision and are educated, they are more willing to participate and productivity is higher. Make sure to talk about club accomplishments and upcoming projects at weekly meetings and recognize Rotarians for participation and outstanding effort.
3. Have more social events that give your membership the ability to make friends.
Have BBQ’s or other social gatherings at members homes and invite all Rotarians that have been members for two years or less. Insist that they attend and bring their partner. Make sure that you make a personal phone call and explain the object of the event. Focus on creating better friendships and less on Rotary education or indoctrination.
4. Do smaller service projects more often.
One of the best ways to build that Rotary bond is through club service projects. The feeling a new member gets by “Doing Good” is an addictive one. By having more smaller projects you keep your members involved and keep those good feelings flowing on a regular basis.
5. Make your meetings a valuable use of a members time.
Programs must be scrutinized carefully, planned in advance, and advertised to the membership ahead of time. Speakers solicited at the last minute generally result in a poor program that is boring. This leaves Rotarians feeling that they have wasted their time, gives them a negative feeling about Rotary, and makes them not want to attend future meetings. Make sure to vary the style and topics of your meetings, very meeting venue if necessary, and treat every meeting like the celebration it should be.
If you follow these 5 tips your club will be well on it’s way to creating some “Krazy” Rotary bonds that just might last a life time.
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Adding Impact to Your Club's District Grants
The Rotary Foundation is working with clubs around the world to be sure that all Global Grants have a significant impact on those benefitting from the grant. The District Foundation Committee wants to apply this same concept to our District Grants. If your club wants to raise the level of impact your District Grants deliver, conducting a Community Needs Assessment is a great place to start.
Why Do Higher Impact Projects?
If we as a District have more high impact projects, they will be our best public relations with our community. Clearly, this is a year for membership growth now that the pandemic is mostly behind us. What better way to attract new members than doing high impact projects?
Please remember that a District Grant does not have to be restricted to your local community, it can be anywhere in our Rotary District, country or even global. You can still get local support by making sure your community knows about the project and its results.
What is a High Impact Project?
High Impact Projects make a significant contribution to the betterment of the target community over a sustained period and increase the capacity of the community to lift themselves. Therefore, a high impact project has significance, measurable outcomes, and sustainability. Examples might be:
Improving the facilities of a senior center has a very long-term impact for many residents. One outcome would be the quality of life of the residents and give them more activities.
Helping to remodel a food bank facility would impact the efficiency of the program for many years. The outcome here is the effectiveness of the Food Bank to serve its clients.
Planting trees has impactful in many ways and impacts individuals and the community. The outcome here is improved environmental sustainability, giving shade to those in the area or reduced desertification.
Converting a facility to solar power would be very impactful in the long term. The outcome here would be improved environmental sustainability and reduced CO2 emissions.
Aiding refugees that do not have a home. The outcome would be to convert the refugees into community members.
Much will depend on the community needs and the capacity of the club. All grants will be treated equally in terms of grant reviews.
How can we do this?
Start by conducting a Community Needs Assessment. Survey or meet with members of the target community. (a community can be defined as a town, neighborhood, school, etc.) The assessment will identify areas of need defined by the community, as opposed to what we think the community needs.
When doing a Community Needs Assessment, utilizing many individuals, non-profits, government agencies in partnership with Rotarians. This is important to extend our reach and capabilities. The assessment will identify more than one opportunity, select one that fits your club’s skills and ability to deliver. Next build a plan of how to make it happen. High Impact projects can take more than a year and District Grants must be completed within one year but this can be overcome by breaking the project into phases which can be completed within the District Grant timeline. Another approach to do a high impact project is to get several clubs working together with each club taking on one or two components of the overall project.
If you need help getting started with the Community Needs Assessment, please contact anyone on the Grants Subcommittee for assistance. We will arrange a meeting in-person or via Zoom.
District Grant Subcommittee
Bill Boon – Chair
Anne Louise Bennett
Linda Hartman
Mel Foremaster
Stefanie Scoppettoni
Patrick Crew
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MUSIC CONTEST FORMS ARE AVAILABLE ON DISTRICT WEBSITE
Attention all clubs! The forms for the 2022-2023 Warren and Fanny Annis Memorial Music Contest have been uploaded to the district 5190 website.
Please login to the site and go to Members Services Tab, click on Avenues of Service, then click on Vocational Services and the District Music Contest is listed there. We look forward to having as many clubs as possible participate this year.
All club and area contests must be completed by April 15th.
Check out this festive fundraiser from the Reno club! Click here to view all the offerings online.
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GREEN SAHEL PROJECT IN SENEGAL
A lot of people talk about combating climate change and food instability, Rotary District 5190 is going hands on in Africa to actually take on the challenge.
The Green Sahel Project is a partnership between Rotary District 5190 and a Senegalese NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) called Volunteer Network for a Green and Prosperous Sahel (VNGPS). The aim of the project is to plant 16,000 fruit trees for families along a 400 Kilometer Sahel corridor of Senegal, along with building a large community farm serving hundreds of people in a town called Fonde Elimane. At this community farm, organic permaculture techniques will be taught in order to save the people money while also giving them sustainably high yields. The main purpose of this project is to implement sustainable solutions to hunger and malnutrition. Secondary benefits include mitigating climate change, financial instability, the expansion of the Sahara Desert, and diminishing biodiversity in the region.
A quick pause for a geography lesson: The Republic of Senegal is a previous French colony located on the horn of West Africa on the Atlantic coastline. The Sahel (pronounced sə-hāl′, -hēl′) is a region in North Africa defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara Desert to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea.
The project on-site supervisor of Green Sahel is Fallon Rotarian Erik Endacott. Back in 2019 Erik joined Peace Corps Senegal, but was unfortunately evacuated out of the country along with all Peace Corps volunteers worldwide due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021 he returned, on his own, to Senegal in order to finish his Peace Corps projects. This time he met Mamadou Babacar Diop, the president and founder of VNGPS. Erik was amazed by the work done by VNGPS. After a few months in Senegal, he then returned to the U.S. for work and fundraising ideas. After almost a year, he returned to Senegal in the Fall of 2022 to oversee the Rotary District 5190 Green Sahel project.
VNGPS is a partnership of volunteers all across the Sahel region of Senegal, headed by its founder, Mamadou Babacar Diop. Being volunteers, no one in the organization gets paid, not even its founder. This is part of what makes it such a good partner since Rotary project rules require that all donations given to an organization have to be used to buy materials. This means that no money is wasted on overhead. Although VNGPS was only established two years ago, it has been a huge success in the region. It has boots on the ground right now and wishes to expand its impact, and Rotary is there to provide them with the launch pad to that end. As of December, 2022, Erik, Mamadou and many volunteers have purchased major infrastructure components such as pumps, pipes, fencing, tools and even a used truck, and are at this time developing the community farm and training facility in Fonde Elimane.
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