The District Assembly for 2005-2006 was held last Saturday at the British Energy Conference Centre in Gloucester.

It was an assembly with a difference!

The 250 delegates were greeted by Town Crier Ken Brightwell ringing out the achievements of Rotary. Our work on Kids Out, Polio, Sitesaving, Tsunami and all the rest of the good news that Rotarians wanted to know about Rotary!

There were around 50 clubs represented and a new format allowed everyone to see the complete presentation rather than breaking into groups. This way a one delegate club could still get the flavour of  everything that was going on, and could feed this back to his club.

The emphasis was on the need for a much higher Public Image for Rotary ( that was the reason for the town crier) If we get a good PR image then recruiting and retention should follow, provided we recruit  the new and current members to a modern thinking club with exciting and challenging projects to keep them enthusiastic.

A superb menu of projects was presented by our District Specialists who promoted each of the four services of Rotary.

A keen delegate would have to do a good deal of homework to sort out the ones he would like to promote to his club colleagues.International, Membership,Community& Vocational,Youth Affairs Communications and Administration projects  and recommendations were all presented professionally using modern IT techniques.

Our guest speakers from our DG's featured charities Mercy Ships (International) and Hearing Dogs for the Deaf (Community) Both gave heart-warming presentations. Edward Sheffield Pathologist from Bristol who gives his time and skills as a Pathologist freely to help the less fortunate in Africa, and Mike with Flint his gorgeous little hearing dog, who in his words said had completely changed his life after he found himself profoundly deaf after a car crash.

Any monies raised by clubs this year will go (their choice) to buy Rotary Hearing Dogs or towards a Rotary Ophthalmic Theatre being supplied for the new Mercy Ship Africa Mercy.

This is now under construction/conversion from a cruise ship at a cost of £9M

Ray Burman closed the speaker session with a wonderfully upbeat presentation. Ray is a Commander in the Metropolitan Police, and puts his career success on being picked as a local beat bobby to go on a Rotary Exchange visit to Brazil by his local Rotary Club in Billericay. This changed his life, and realising the potential of his contemporaries on the trip, he returned to get a degree and move up the ranks in his chosen career. But only after he joined Rotary! He was a DG last year
and will Chair Communications for RIBI next year. No one present would be surprised if we were listening to a future RIBI President. And a young one too!

District Governor Ken opened and closed the Assembly by announcing that our favourite theme Service above Self will be used to take us forward into the new century of Rotary.The achievements of the past only happened because Rotarians put Service above Self. He asked us to realise the importance of our role in leading our organisation into the new century. Every member must realise they are members of Rotary International, an organisation of 1.2 million Rotarians in 166 countries, not just The Rotary Club of Much Binding in The Marsh. Each President and club should avail themselves of the fantastic resources that are provided by our District, by RIBI, and by RI. After all we the members, pay for them. We must use these resources to bring in younger new members into a modern style club using modern communication methods. They will not expect anything less.

Realise the need for communications, tell everyone your success stories, and ask for help from neighbouring clubs and District officers if you or your club have problems.

To this end a District Road show is being provided to present a modern, professional view of Rotary. It will be available in September and will present Rotary to communities, businesses to encourage public awareness of what we do and to join us to do more. We have a good story to tell so why not tell it.

DG Ken then set a challenge to all Presidents and clubs for next year.
"Show us that you are good enough to win the Presidential award"
To do this a club has to:Increase membership by having a net gain of +1 new member and complete one acceptable project in each of the following areas of service
Public Image  Club Service  Vocational Service  Community Service   International Service.

It's nice to win an award. So come on Have aGo

The Assembly closed with a request to wear our badge with pride and give Service above Self to Rotary and others.