fun – Rotaract District 5050

September is New Generations Month!

Well, as my summer months come to an end it’s time to ramp up the Rotaract year with new ideas, engaging speakers, service projects and fabulous fellowship!

Are you a Rotaractor here in District 5050 or abroad? Have you reached out to a local Rotary club, Rotarians or anyone in General to let them know about what Rotaract is or what we do? I challenge you to engage these groups and inform them of the exciting things that you and your club are doing this coming year.

Did you know that as a Rotaractor you are more than welcome to visit any Rotary club at any time? I’ll post some of my Rotary visit experiences here in following updates. Other clubs are fun to visit for a number of reasons; you get to know other Rotarians from the area who don’t make it out to the larger functions, you get to see what other clubs do to keep their meeting fresh and fun, and you get to inform everyone about us as a group. It’s all too easy. And you ususally get a meal out of it (which you will likely have to pay for, but whatever, it’s a meal out).

If you would like to attend a meeting anywhere but are a bit reserved to go it alone, just let me know. I’ll join you or rally a group of us together to make an evening out of it.

Fun, yes?

Have a great New Genereations month, I look forward to seeing everyone out and about!

They Told Us To Take A Hike And We Did

The District 5050 hike was this past weekend over at the Oyster Dome in Washington State roughly 10 minutes south of Blaine on the I-5. I sat on my porch the night prior and watched a wicked lightning storm in the same area that the hike was to take place in, because of this I wasn’t entirely sure how the day was going to pan out. By the time the morning hit, the storm had moved on but the clouds were still looming around the mountain.

Being the particular person that I am, I wanted to ensure that I made it through the border in good time as to not miss out on the adventure (I have missed Rotary events in the States due to poor border planning on my part). The hike was to start between 10:00am and 11:00am so I was at the border at 7:00am. With the lightened government regulation and increased goods allowance for items coming back into Canada I know that lines have been longer than usual with people taking advantage of buying lots of cheap goods. In retrospect, I don’t think I would have gone down quite that early. With the NEXUS line being only one car long, I was coasting through the backwoods of Blaine at approximately 7:20am. Nevertheless, I was on time.

Having never been to the Oyster Dome before I took my coffee and my Juke of power up the logging road through the park to check out where the event would be taking place. To my surprise there was a rough dirt road that took you up to the lookout point, near the half-way point of the hike. I took some pictures at the lookout and made my trek back down the mountain. This burned off enough time for me to get back to the meeting point at the Shell gas station just opposite the highway from the road to the park enterance.

Rotarians from the area started to roll in around 9:45am right up until 11:15am. Hike organizer Ajay Caleb was there to add direction, Bill Toomey fed the motley crew with his packed lunches, Lynn Gray handled the second half of registration, and our own RTR Pat Bond kicked off the registration process as well as gracing us with her awesome presence. Me, I shuttled people up the mountain, and I was fine with that. It’s too bad the barbecue didn’t pan out, but there’s always next year.
Overall the event went off quite well. There was between 20-25 hikers in all.

Another district fellowship success!