Outgoing President's message

6/5/17—Club President Brenda Laird’s outgoing speech: “With each presidency I began with great intentions of what can be accomplished by our small but mighty club.  At the end of my two terms I go back and review all that we did accomplish and this club absolutely WOWs me.

What did Sunrise Rotary do last year?

Five Fundraisers;

Flu Shots -   $7,820 to Polio Plus commitment and Foundation

Change for a Cause – Pink Pig Project – close to $2,000 for two years.  This money will go to the program to help homeless high school students.

Golf Tournament – $11,750

    $3,000 LCCC endowed scholarship (now totaling over $60,000.00, making CSR a major donor of LCCC)

    $2,937 Foster Grandparents Program

    $2,937 Sunrise Rotary Foundation

Giving Basket – Update coming 

Foster Kid’s Christmas Dinner – $21,000 in Foundation acct.

Partnerships/Service

Centennial Grant – All Cheyenne clubs – 200 first day chemo bags

Salvation Army – table sponsor and bell ringing $1,200 (Most brought in from kettles this year in a one day tally)

Women’s Civic League – Food Emergency Pantry for NEEDS – we donated 100 jars of peanut butter and jelly with a joint effort of over 400.  

“Gobble Gang” - $200 provided by the club to help others in the community donate turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas to organizations that cook for the community.

Produce for Vet’s – collected left over vegetables for the VA and veterans at the Farmer’s Market.  This was a partnership with the After Hours Club.

End Polio Night at the Game – Worked with athletic director at LCCC and all clubs donated and many attended the game.  Raised $1,200 to help end polio.

Cranium Cup Team – Joined the Noon Club for their fundraising evening by sponsoring a table and joining in on the fun.

Peaches – Supported the Noon Club with their peach sales in August.

Back a Kid Breakfast – Supported Boys and Girls Club and attended their breakfast fundraiser – skipping our own meeting.

Friendship Playground – Joined with the Lion’s Club to help complete funding for the Friendship Playground.  We donated $500.

Friday Food Bag – Members teamed up and helped fill bags – we even got to spend the evening with W.M. as he was in town.

Inbound Exchange Student Dinner – Supported raffle to help students with their travel and we even had a winner.

Panhandling for Polio – Supported the Rotaract Club with taking up a donation at our meeting and donating the funds to go towards their sleep out  at the Depot.  $75 was collected and donated.

Christmas and Valentine’s celebrations – joined the Noon Club and celebrated with them.  Huge success!

Cheyenne Little Theater – Donated $500 in memory of little Ruby Guille.  

Lebhardt School – Donated  needed art supplies to an art teacher at Lebhardt.

LCCC Foundation – Donated $6,000 (includes match) to our scholarship at LCCC.  $63,435 is our current value.  We scholarship a male and female student each year.  

Junior RYLA - Sending 4 students to RYLA.  Amazing….we are training our future leaders.

Books – Donated over 20 books to local schools in honor of our guest speakers.  Thank you Justin Kallal for delivering them and placing pictures and text on Facebook.

St. Joseph’s Food Pantry - Donated a truck load of food collected at our meeting before Thanksgiving.  

“Giving from the Heart”– regional donations.  Even helped in Estes Park.

Other Accomplishments:

Toured the new Conservatory now under construction at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and Cheyenne Public Safety Building.

Spent an evening at the Rotaract meeting, sharing ideas and mentoring.

Two "Breakfasts At Brenda’s" – Thank you Dorothy for the help.

Lapel Pens – Rotarian’s at Work – letting the community know who we are!  FB, Internet Site – Thank Phil for all of his hard work.

Missing Rotarian’s got a mailing each quarter of “what we are up to!”

Made District Newsletter twice.

We had 19 wonderful guest speakers.  Thank Jason for his hard work.

St. Patrick’s Day Dinner – just plain FUN.

Health Check Survey – still working on the recommendations but we found out we are working on making our club the best.

Doc received another amazing award.  

Voted in new officers for the Foundation.  Thank you Mike, Earl, Doc and Dorothy.

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District Activities;

Several attend Fall Assembly this year and I presented.

I attended District Leadership Summit training.

I presented at PETS (Rotary's Presidents-Elect Training Seminar)

Doc attended the Centennial Dinner.

Several new members went to Rotary 101 presented by the Noon Club.

I presented the Inspiration at two Noon Rotary meetings.

Several attended Membership Matters Summit.

New Members:  Jamie Davis, Al Walcker

Challenges for next year:

    •    Membership – as always.  We have had 4 interested individuals and Randy and Brian are working on having them join us.

    •    Engagement – Continue with engaging members.  The more the merrier at meetings and projects.

Congrats to each and every one of our Sunrise Rotary Club members.  By showing up and engaging in the club we made a BIG difference in the community.  I was honored to serve as President for two years.  You are blessed to have a beautiful, talented, energized new president starting July 1.  I ask that you show Roxanne the same support you gave me….she is the most giving and kind-hearted woman I know.  Help her make this club even better – you do it by showing up, contributing to service/social/partnering projects.