Registration is now open for the Holiday Gift Wrapping Party & Annual Holiday Dinner scheduled for Monday, December 16, 2024. Rotarians and guests may register using the website ... just click on the bold name above to go to the Club Calendar. The club's holiday event typically begins with gift wrapping at 5:30 p.m., with dinner to follow, and then the club holds its annual meeting for this Rotary year. Club members may register through midnight on Wednesday, December 11 using the club's Calendar event. The fee is $55 per attendee, which covers venue, food, and drink costs, and is paid at the time of registration.

Rotary's Holiday Gifting Party supports John Muir Elementary School families whose circumstances the school staff determines make them eligible for holiday gift donations. Click on the yellow wrapped box to make a holiday gift donation to the Rotary club. Terry and Michelle Cole have committed $2,500 in match for most holiday gift donations ... as of this issue of The Spokesman there is $900 of the match left to be earned by your donations. The Gift Buying Trip to Fred Meyer is Saturday, December 14. Click HERE to sign up!

Rose Hill Middle School Principal Joe Gorder and Associate Principal Kristen Tollefsen spoke to club's membership during the November 4 meeting to introduce Rotarians to The Hygiene Drive to benefit families at RHMS and its integrated choice program, Stella Schola. The drive began mid-October and runs through November 22. Throughout the year, The Pantry supports the RHMS community of students in need by providing hygiene items that they have requested. It began as a support effort when everything shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, forcing some of the RHMS families out of work or into financial uncertainty, and it continues as the needs continue.
 

 

For the 2023-24 school year, 17.3% of RHMS students, which is 154 students, qualified as low-income. RHMS also has lots of families that join them during the school year, many of whom qualify as low-income, and staff connect as well with families they hear about during the year whose conditions have changed (parents lose jobs, etc.) and who have needs that are acute and very real. When they hear about them, they offer support.

During the year past presidents are stepping up to preside at meetings while our president is away from club activities. Thank you to those all of the past presidents who've volunteered to lead meetings during the year. There are several other roles that are necessary for smooth conduct of our meetings, whether in-person or virtual. Please sign up for several "open" meeting duties for this year. Our club needs your contribution to make the meetings effective and enjoyable for all of our membership. The meeting responsibilities matrix is available to you in the "Members" drop-down menu on the home page of the club's website. Like the committee table, the responsibilities table is updated regularly as club members add their names to the duties throughout the year. You may click HERE to jump to the table from this article.

During the meeting of November 4, 2024, 19 members voted in favor of approval of revisions to Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Article 10 to make several officer positions voting positions on the board, to clarify how quorums are counted, and to change the name of the spouse/partner membership to partner and clarify the qualifications under this category. The updated Rotary Club of Kirkland Bylaws are posted to the Documents section of ClubRunner.

Rotarians are reminded that the club's annual board nominating committee, this year comprising past presidents Gary Cohn and Rick Ostrander, has begun its work. The committee is responsible under the bylaws for organizing a proposed slate of officers and directors for the forthcoming year. The slate will consist of the president-elect, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and members of the board of directors who are chairs of the avenues of service committees, the membership chair, and the programs chair. The president-elect automatically becomes president, and the president automatically becomes the immediate past-president.