Our District Governor, Michele Bois-Gilbody, came to our meeting last week. 

Michele has been an active member of the Freeport Rotary Club for 18 years. She has served the District as trainer, HR coordinator, and member of the Visioning Committee. Her career has been spent as an educator; she founded and led the Cricket Hunt School beginning in 2001. And she has her wild side: Michele is also a Reiki master and herbalist.

So, what is a District Governor, I hear you ask? For organizational reasons, Rotary clubs are grouped into geographical “districts.” Ours comprises the southern half of Maine and coastal New Hampshire. And just as clubs have presidents, similarly, Districts have governors, selected each year to provide guidance, club support, and general cheerleading. A District Governor’s job is to inspire and engage Rotary members and the public, thereby enhancing the visibility and impact of the work we do as Rotarians. 

And it’s easy to understand why Michele was selected. She spoke about attraction, stewardship, engagement and impact, and urged us to intentionally make sure the work of our club involves all four of these aspects.

Attraction: Michele encouraged us, when we are talking about Rotary, to stress how it has changed those of us who are involved in our work. Saying we do service is the truth, of course, and Michele pointed out that for many of us, Rotary means more than that, because the service we do is so frequently sustainable, and because we often become changed in the process. 

Stewardship, she pointed out, means maintaining what we are doing until the job is complete. Our work to eradicate polio, for example, is 99.9 percent complete, with less than one hundred cases of the disease cropping up annually each year. For this reason, it would be easy to become complacent. But because polio is a virus, if left unchecked even for a few years, it would come roaring back and very quickly we would be counting the cases in the hundreds of thousands, just as was the case before Rotary got involved in ending polio. That same stewardship is, of course, necessary in every disease that can be managed via vaccination.

Engagement is how we take care of one another. Our club is just that – a group of people who care for one another. It’s easy to take this for granted. At last week’s meeting, for example, we mourned the loss of a member’s husband and we cheered for two members who are on the road to recovery after their respective surgeries. Care doesn’t mean we have to take each other seriously, of course. When Jeff said that he was on “injured reserve” and would not be leading a pickup crew for the duration, President Jim quickly commented, “moved to management, you mean.”

And then there’s impact. Michele urged us to think about the fact that Rotary is 120 years old and that we are the recipients of the Rotary our fore-parents created as well as stewards for the next century of Rotary.

Before her talk, Bill brought us up to date on what we have banked from Barn sales, and how we have spent the funds. While we have bills to pay – insurance, utilities and mortgage – we gave grants last year totaling $65,000. Not bad for a Saturday job! We also had 87 bikes on the road this summer – all helping one or more of our international workers get around town.

We took time to thank our two Interactors who work at the Barn on an ongoing basis – except when a track competition intervenes, of course. AJ and Josh are terrific helpers, and we thank them for everything they do. Wow!

As for dinner, it was a wonderful, self-service potluck. Everything was yummy, and everything was plentiful. All agreed that we should have a potluck more often.

Michele reminded us that October is Polio Awareness Month, the time when we reflect on what Rotary has accomplished in our goal to end polio now, and what we still have to do. She welcomed us to the District-wide celebration to take place on Oct. 17 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, all designed to raise money to provide dogs for veterans – a population with twice the suicide rate of the rest of the population.

Nearer at hand, next Thursday we will hear from Fay from Action for Animals. This is one of the groups that has been selling coffee on Saturday mornings at the Barn; now we have the chance to learn more about what they do. And speaking of the Barn – be there on Saturdays from 8:30 to 11 a.m., when we turn donations into treasure and the proceeds come back to the community. 

We’re participating in the Railway Village Spooktacular. A really fun community event held on Oct. 31. Contact Conxa if you want to see lots of little ghosts, witches and Harry Potters. 

Interested in Rotary and all we do? Come check us out -- we meet Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at 88 Montgomery Road. We’re always looking for like-minded individuals who want to give back to the community and have fun while doing so. Come find out more about us – you’ll be glad you did!