Jim Priest
Joe Dorman
Reflections 2025
Joe Dorman and Jim Priest
Happy New Year, Rotarians! You won’t see a ball-drop in Times Square on July 1, but the new year for Rotary has begun! Let’s celebrate the one-year reign of President Ross, bid a grateful-for-your-service adieu to President Suzanne, and get ready for some outstanding weekly meetings AND writings from fellow Club members in the Reflections column of our newsletter.
As Co-Chairs of the Reflections Committee, we have shamelessly and outlandishly promised fame, fortune and Pulitzer Prizes to those who volunteered for this breathtakingly risky assignment. As you read Reflections this year, you can be assured of pithy pronouncements of proverbs, newsy notes of nostalgia and incisive iterations of intellectual insights. All this for free as part of your membership dues. What a deal!
But here’s the best news. Because of an over-abundance of weeks this year, there is still time for you to volunteer to submit a column as we have a few unassigned weeks remaining. All you must do is email Joe or Jim, or let Cheryl or Megan know of your aspirations to join John Grisham on the best seller list. Trust us – it’s not hard. We know because we’ve done it. It is simply 300-500 words or so on an appropriate topic of your choice, hopefully tied in some way to the history, motto, or themes of Rotary, with an inspiration to go forth and do things which build truth, fairness to all concerned, build good will and better friendships and beneficial to all concerned. This is your chance to express your opinion in public and be memorialized in local Rotary history, since once something is on the Internet, it never goes away.
Now you may be saying, “I’m not a writer.” Wait a minute! Surely, you’ve written something at some point in your life, even if it were only a grocery list. If you can’t think of a topic, call Joe or Jim. We never run out of words! Interview someone. Use Chat GPT to get you started (but no plagiarizing)! We have confidence there are a couple dozen modest Stephen King wanna-be Rotarians out there, so sign up, read up, and join up by putting Service Above Self!
With that, let’s kick off the new year with inspiration. Let this also be an invitation for those of you who have not been in-person to a meeting in a while to “dip your toe” back in the Rotary water by sharing your thoughts and attend the meeting following your published work of art to discuss with your fellow club members. We want to see you not only on Tuesdays at lunch or Thursdays at breakfast, but also engaging in some of the fun, fellowship activities that build good will and better friendships through Rotary.
Happy New Year, Club 29ers! Let’s get get busy putting Service Above Self!
Best solicitation ever! (However, I would ease off on the Stephen King wannabe’s………)