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The Conference Begins in Earnest Today was the first full day of conferencing. Robin, Micah and I got up in the morning and headed for the Convention Center. When we got on the shuttle we met all kinds of people from all over the world. Our first encounter was with two gentlemen from Nigeria. They were very friendly and fell in love with Micah. I sat next to a gentleman from Canada who was at his 6th convention. He is in charge of his district's Youth Exchange program and got me up to speed on it. I have his card and he is willing to help us in anyway we might need it. We went to the 2nd Plenary session and listened to Dr. Tadataka Yamada encourage Rotary to match the Gates Foundation donation of $100 million. He serves as President of Global Health Program for the Gates Foundation. He displayed true passion in erradicating Polio. Next we listened to David Forward give a historical account of Rotary. He recently has written a book on the the first 100 years of Rotary. He talked about the history of Rotary and how it has been made by lesser known men and women and not the people we necessarily usually associate with Rotary. In fact, he metioned that two of the four original members dropped out within the first two years. Micah enjoyed this session as well. The founder of the Charicter Counts movement spoke. Micah loves the program at his school and was excited to listen to the founder. He encouraged Rotary to continue to live out the Four Way Test. Next we broke off into break out sessions. I visited a program titled "Effective Club Administration with the Club Leadership Plan." It was encouraging and something I would like to visit with our club. It would really help direct us for the next 3 to 5 years. Robin and Micah visited a program titled "Adoption Awareness." This program encouraged us to work with local adoption agencies to create opportunities for them to meet potential adoptees in a non-threatening atmosphere. Once we finished conventioning for the day we headed back and used the public transit system to get us to Hollywood. This portion of the visit can be summed up as follows: "Thank God for conservative Iowa." We experienced a whole lot of freaks. Tomorrow we head for the beach! |
