Paul Grey introduced our featured speaker, District 5050 Governor Carol Tichelman, who was Zooming in from Chilliwack, BC. Carol first joined Rotary in 1992 when in
Prince George. In 1995, Carol moved to Chilliwack, where she opened her own Financial Planning practice, and joined the Rotary Club of Chilliwack. She is a multiple Paul Harris Fellow, and a Major Donor and Benefactor of The Rotary Foundation, and a recipient of the Avenues of Service Citation from Rotary International in recognition of her lengthy list of service to Rotary, her Church and her community.
Carol was President of the Rotary Club of Chilliwack 2005-2006, and again in 2016-17. Carol was District Trainer from 2006-2009, District Conference Chair 2009, has been part of the faculty for the Rotary Leadership Institute since 2007, was the District Visioning Coordinator from 2007-2013, served as an Assistant Governor 2009-2011 and was an Instructor for the Pacific Northwest PETS for 3 years (2012-2014). She has been to many International Conventions and went to Brazil in 2015 on a Friendship Exchange. In 2015, Carol received The Rotary Foundation’s “International Service Award for a Polio-Free World”, and, in 2016, Rotary’s “Service Above Self Award”.
Carol began her talk by presenting People of Action Awards to 5 hard-working members of our Club: Shauna Naf, Felicity Dye and Kirstin Hunt for their efforts on behalf of the Rotary International Youth Exchange Program, and Jennifer Moehl and John Dunne for chairing this year's Major Project effort.
COVID-19 silenced Rotary world wide in the middle of March, 2020. Although no one in Rotary leadership was prepared for this calamity, within 2 weeks of the shutdown, District 5050 offered every Area in the District a Covid Response Grant and the local Clubs adapted to the new reality and continued serving their communities. Whatcom County Clubs received favorable media coverage for their contributions to the Food Bank, Starfish Backpack Program and The Boys and Girls Club. Carol is confident that Rotary will emerge from this pandemic more dynamic and effective than before.
President of Rotary International, Holger Knaack, asked four things of the District Governors at the International Assembly last January:
1. Create new, innovative Club models, such as Satellite and Rotaract Clubs to expand member outreach.
2. Have each Club develop a 5 Year Strategic Plan.
3. Encourage all Clubs to select new members carefully, making sure they are a good fit for the Club and that the Club meets their expectations.
4. Encourage each Club to continue the effort to eradicate polio by donating to End Polio Now.
The requirements for Rotary Club Citation has changed in the past 2 years in that, besides paying dues, each Club is now free to set its own agenda and goals as to how to best serve its community.
D.G. Carol emphasized how important Rotary's contributions are to the global economy by quoting a recent Johns Hopkins study which showed that the monetary value of the 47 million hours of volunteer services that Rotary provides annually around the world is $850 million. She reminded us that Rotarians are people of action, guided by the motto “Service Above Self” and The Four Way Test, and that the definition of integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching.
Carol described how Rotary's effort to eradicate polio is very personal for her because her father suffered from the disease. She has participated in nine National Immunization Days throughout the world, immunizing many children herself. As a result of the efforts of Rotary and others, the World Health Organization was able to announce in August that the transmission of the wild polio virus has been stopped in all of Africa. However, more work is needed to totally eliminate polio from the world because there are still new cases occurring in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Carol pointed out that the infrastructure that Rotary helped create to fight polio will be available to fight other diseases in the future. The Rotarians who have been on the front lines of fighting polio have also contributed to fighting the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the developing world.
Carol announced that the RI President for 2022-23 will be Jennifer Jones, who is from our Rotary Zone 28 and will be the first woman RI President. Her election is part of RI's commitment, made in 2019, that, by June, 2023, at least 30% of Rotarians and RI leadership will be women. In addition, RI is enhancing its emphasis on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) by starting a monthly webinar series on this topic. Our District is also developing a DEI program.
Carol announced that the Board of Trustees of the RI Foundation have added the Environment as a 7th area of focus for grants, starting in July, 2021.
At our District level:
1. A Blood Donation Challenge has been established, as detailed under Announcements above.
2. A course will be offered by Rotarian Toastmasters to improve members' public speaking skills.
3. Assisting Clubs to collaborate with each other in applying for global grants from international service funds to allow members to participate in international service projects, as our Club is already doing in Honduras and Uganda.
4. Carol invited us to the next annual District Conference, which is scheduled for Chilliwack on May 16, 2021, COVID-19 conditions permitting. Details can be found on the District website.
5. She urged our Club to submit articles and pictures of our activities to the Peace Arch Journal, the District's newsletter.
Carol encouraged members to consider attending the RI Convention in Taipei in June, 2021. If the event is cancelled due to COVID-19, all registration fees will be reimbursed.
Finally, Carol shared a Rotary Moment of hers, illustrating how being part of Rotary can fundamentally change lives in unexpected ways. Her mother, with whom she had never been close, had always been critical of Carol for using so much of her time and energy doing volunteer work for Rotary rather than her church. This changed when her mother accompanied Carol on a Rotary service trip to Mexico to deliver wheelchairs. Experiencing the joy and gratitude of the wheelchair recipients, her mother came to understand how important this work was. She subsequently became a Paul Harris fellow Rotarian and she and Carol enjoyed the close relationship they never previously had for the last years of her life.
