For starters, I had a great bunch of people to work with in our club.  My Board included:

·         Barb Bent, President Elect

·         Darlene Carpenter, Secretary

·         Barbara Fisk, Treasurer                                   

·         Carrie Rutter & Cam Skipper, Club Service Directors

·         Ralph Marziano, Community Service Director

·         Peggy Anderson-Coats, Vocational Director

·         Larry Henderson, International Director

As the first year in a new Century of Rotary Service, the RI President Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammer [nicknamed the Hammer] elected to use “Service Above Self” as the theme of his year.  Closer to home, our DG Doug asked us to reach for the Stars by encouraging Clubs & Presidents to set 3-5 goals & give out Star Achiever Awards to Rotarians who helped us reach our goals.  I set five goals: increase membership by 5, improve club communications [bulletin, website, etc], do an international project, continue as a Rotary Foundation Sustaining Club & Have FUN & Fellowship!  Although I wasn’t able to meet the first goal, the rest of them were accomplished through the STAR process – Successful Teamwork Achieves Results.  I have all the club members to thank for coming through with flying colours to help me achieve four out of five of my goals. 

We didn’t meet my membership goal as we lost 5 members over the year but we had 2 new members join us, Mike Baker and Maureen Smith.  They have both been a great asset to our club & we welcome their continued support. 

I was looking forward to a challenging year with fewer funds in the pot due to Rainfest in 2004 but we managed to pull off a tremendously successful year despite this challenge.  Many of our most popular projects/events take few funds & more sweat equity like Bingo & Paint Your Heart Out. 

The start of the year saw us thinking about the future & focusing on a target through a process of developing a Mission Statement for the club.  I would like to thank all the club members for their input, thoughts & opinions during this process.  It was a valuable step forward for our club and our Mission Statement reads:

The Rotary Club of Guelph Trillium is dedicated to enhancing the lives of others through local and international projects.

I thanked 2 club members individually with Star Achiever Awards for all their hard work:

         Robert White – for ensuring that we get a regular bulletin

 Elizabeth Lambden – for her efforts in promoting our club – PR extraordinaire!

Since the club pulled through and helped reach & surpass my Rotary Foundation goal [not only doubled but tripled it!], I presented all club members with Gold Star stickers in early January.  Through the efforts of the Club & individuals, we were one of the top clubs for the District in Foundation Giving in 2005-2006. 

Ribfest continues to be a successful fundraiser for our club.  We saw some sun & rain during the 2005 year but overall it was a success.  Under the fearless leadership of our PE, Barb Bent, we were able to raise over $12,000 for Hospice with the raffle.  Great work Barb!

Larry asked the club for input to help us get involved in an international project & several ideas came forward.  In the end, we sponsored a well in Haiti that is spearheaded by the Ancaster Rotary Club.  Roy Sheldrick came & spoke to our club on the project.  Although we didn’t get matching funds for this project, our contribution of $5,000 helped a group of people in Haiti have access to clean drinking water for the first time in their lives.  Great work team!

Our Fellowship Committee & Family of Rotary continued to pave the way with great opportunities to get together as a group.  We played euchre & hot tubbed in the fall, tried to get a curling day going but were short on the numbers, enjoyed the Youth Exchange kids during a weekend in April & drove around the city and area during the Car Rally.  We also enjoyed a family breakfast at Christmas with James Gordon singing and the Ribfest Kick Off party in July ‘05.