Thus far, the 62^nd year of our existence at the Rotary Club of Fair Oaks has seen our members involved in a lot of activities on the club and community level. Last month we successfully co-sponsored the third annual Senior Luau, a get-together luncheon for senior citizens in the Fair Oaks area, a mere four days after we provided and staffed a beer and wine booth at the second annual Fair Oaks Chicken Festival. We have an ongoing project to clean up a local section of Madison Avenue, and we have come together to tear down and dispose of a dilapidated barn belonging to one of our members. Most recently we provided volunteers for the Sacramento Salmon Festival at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery.

We have had several offsite meetings, including the District River Cats Night, for which we chartered a… rousing cheer!… bus and invited several other Rotary Clubs in the area to join us, and recently we enjoyed an educational tour of Beermann’s Beerwerks, a local brewery in Roseville.

A number of our members have been attended or been part of District Seminars (Membership, Foundation and grant preparation) and most recently our communications officer was a presenter at the District Website Seminar. We are in the final stages of completing a joint international grant with the Rancho Cordova club, seeking funds to provide much needed medical equipment for an E.R. for a village Argentina. And there is much more coming up in the next 9 months, so much more that I think my demotion will be upon me before I know it!

I am so very proud and honored to serve as the president of this club, and am enjoying my 16^th year in Fair Oaks Rotary. What drew me initially to join our club was not just the great dinners… come visit if you don’t know what I am talking about… but that everyone was committed to making Fair Oaks a better community while having a great time doing it. Camaraderie is what I really feel makes the whole Rotary experience worthwhile. Providing a smorgasbord of club, community, international, Foundation and fellowship activities, so that there is always something that will pique someone’s interest, is what brings our members back for more, and will encourage them to share the experiences with family, co-workers, and prospective new members. Our club’s focus on camaraderie is why I think we have existed for 62 years and why we will continue to be a great club for at least the next 62 years.

I had my trepidations and doubts at becoming the 62nd president of this club, but so far those fears have been allayed by the encouraging support of my board and all our members. I can reflect on the first three months of my presidency and honestly say I am having a great time, and that nothing thrown at me to date has been overwhelming. In fact, I can state I have learned far more about what Rotary means in the past nine months than I did in my prior 15 years as a member. I only wished that I had taken the job sooner! I would recommend to any member to take up your club banner as president if you have not done so already. In that way, as I feel I have, you will become a much more “complete” Rotarian.