Jennifer Jones

President 2022-23

January 2023

Rotary recently surveyed our members and found something that should be unsurprising but still caused many of us in Rotary leadership to sit up and pay attention: The single most important factor in member satisfaction is the club experience. How at home you feel in your club, how rewarding club meetings are, and how engaged you feel in service projects.

I have seen this firsthand across the Rotary world this year. When members feel an emotional connection to their club, they cannot imagine leaving. And that connection is often forged in “Rotary moments,” when people feel that special connection to the people around them and the impact of their service. Our Imagine Impact Tour is all about shining a light on those Rotary moments and encouraging our members to tell their stories.

But there’s something else that makes an enormous difference in building and sustaining that connection. It’s the comfort and care of our members — both Rotarians and Rotaractors. As my Rotary friend Todd Jenkins says, “People can’t see how you think, but they sure can see your actions.”

We are in the relationship business, and if we take care of each other — genuinely show concern for each other — then we will make friends for life, and we will do anything to widen that circle of friendship.

The question is: How do we live with our eyes wide open and do the things that really matter? We do this by taking time for each other, actively listening to one another, and treating every Rotary member as equally valuable — no matter how long we have been a member or what position we hold. 

People like me in Rotary leadership can offer all kinds of advice about how to make your club experience more valuable. But what’s most important is for everyone in every Rotary club to speak up and listen to one another. We should never be afraid to share with our fellow Rotary member what we expect to get out of our membership and have an open discussion about how to make that happen.

To lead a Rotary club is to invite such dialogue and to be willing to try new approaches. Good leadership is giving it away. Propping others up. Allowing others to feel the victory.

I have one last request for club leaders. We still need to do more worldwide to increase our female membership. It’s up a bit this year, but I know we can and must do better. Rotary is growing again. As I write this, we’re just a handful of members away from surpassing 1.2 million Rotarians again. So let’s redouble our efforts to bolster our clubs with great new members, then keep them for life by providing comfort and care. 

 

Your professional life and vocational service go together. Rotarians have a dual responsibility: to represent their occupations within their club and to exemplify the ideals of Rotary in their places of work. 

 

Rotary clubs reflect the diversity of our communities and the breadth of viewpoints that comes from our members’ varied professional and personal experiences. For more than 100 years, we have been applying different perspectives to create innovative, sustainable solutions that address the needs and challenges affecting our communities.

 

Harnessing our unique perspectives and ideas gives us a shared purpose — one that compels us to take action. We roll up our sleeves, leverage our personal relationships with local partners and businesses, and apply our leadership skills as a way to get the job done and bring to life the changes we envision.

The demand for safe and warm emergency shelter space could be record-breaking this year, as Edmonton’s homeless population has grown significantly since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Hope Mission is expecting to see significant demand for emergency shelter space as temperatures drop and more people start seeking a warm, safe place to sleep.

In addition to emergency services, Hope Mission also focuses on offering programming and supports on a 24/7 basis, such as 24/7 shelter spaces, a daytime drop-in space, hot meals and social supports such as housing, addiction treatment and recovery options, and medical supports.

Edmonton West volunteers spent Sunday morning preparing, serving, and helping with the clean up of the daily meal service.

For more than 25 years, a team of Rotarians from Edmonton West and others have visited remote Guatemalan communities to conduct eye examinations, provide glasses and medication for eye infections. The team, led by Dr. Ben Doz completed another successful trip where they saw over 600 patients. Ben will be speaking to the club about the mission at one of our upcoming meetings. I highly recommend coming to hear all about it. Date TBD. Here are a few sneak peek photos.

 

Peace Poles in the Park
 

There are estimated over 250,000 Peace Poles around the world dedicated as monuments to peace. Planting a Peace Pole is a way of bringing people together to inspire, awaken and uplift the human consciousness the world over. It is a wonderful project for any community, organization or your home.  Peace Poles are now recognized as the most prominent international symbol and monument to peace. They remind us to think, speak and act in the spirit of peace and harmony, and they stand as a silent visual for peace to prevail on earth. Each pole is engraved with 4 or 8 languages which all state, “May Peace Prevail On Earth”. It is an all-inclusive message and prayer to bring people of all faiths, backgrounds and cultures together to understand and embrace our common bonds.

Plans are to install 100 peace poles in the park by 2032, on their 100th Anniversary. District 5080 and 5390 have already started. In District 5080 one Rotary Club "gifts" a pole to another club.

 

Plans are also underway to create a Peace Garden in Waterton park and a Peace Centre in Glacier Park.

 

• a lifestyle that is consistent with the Four-Way test
• a life showing purpose and expressing principles widely accepted in the community
• taking a stand without concern for personal loss or reputation, regardless of circumstances
• demonstrating integrity without the need for recognition within the community 
• making a personal contribution to the region that warrants special recognition