Posted by Jake Bourdeau

President Don Zillman started off the Club Assembly and brought up an article by Time Magazine’s Nancy Gibbs that discussed where America has been and is presently. Her article discussed how unifying institutions like Rotary and churches are declining in attendance. She noted that major societal changes seem to be occurring, and President Don provided this as food for thought during the assembly discussions. 

(Photo at left: President Don Zillman and Steve Mortimer, Chair of Visioning Committee.)

Steve Mortimer, Chair of the Visioning Committee, moved the conversation to the recent questionnaire sent to all club members.

Regarding music, the patriotic support components of the meeting will continue, however, the Music Committee is evaluating the current arrangement list in the club song book, and whether some more improvements can be brought about.  Stay tuned until January….  

Regarding the invocation, the Club input was regarding whether the time spent should be religious-based or more inspirational, since the times, the club, and societal makeup have grown more diverse. 

There was a large consensus that as a club, we do not want to divert speakers from discussing public policy and affairs. Club members want to be careful to limit partisan political events and speakers, however. A written policy is being prepared which can help speakers with presentations when then are considering their speaking topics. The Club would like to leave open the possibility for finalists in state-wide political races, federal races, and even possibly local races, if pertinent. The Club is also considering debates, and/or for the lead candidates to come speak at our club during consecutive weeks. Since there are currently over 10 candidates for governor, the consensus is to wait for a few to drop out, or to stick to the primary party candidates. 

Steve noted that the Club’s vision statement seemed a little long compared to others. He also noted that only 23 members of the club responded to the visioning questionnaire which served to start the conversations.  

There was a question about whether the Club's vision statement would be revised. Approximately half of the respondents agreed; however, none disagreed. So why change the vision statement? Steve has worked on many vision statements over the years, and he noted the best ones are 15 words or less....ours has over 100 words. Many responses from the club following this topic discussed how the vision was developed in recent club history, questioned the need of a statement, and noted that the Childhood Hunger and Education (CHE) focus was voted to last for a minimum of a 5-year span.

Another question from the survey was regarding the Club's geographical focus? Portland, Greater Portland, and international were the reported ranked priorities. 

The rest of the meeting was packed with goodwill, ideas, and opinions. Many of the club members shared valuable input.

Finally, the survey listed a number of different Portland Rotary projects, and it asked what projects members would give their time, money, both, or neither? Survey says:

1) Veterans lunch 
2) Food insecurity
3) Local students on path toward financial independence 
4) Improvement of early childhood education, such as reading programs
5) Helping new Mainers acclimate
6) Helping others 

So where do go from here? The information shared will be discussed with the Vision Committee to prepare for that answer and they will report back to the membership.