With a few ideas from me, above is the logo created for us by Betsy McAshley, Chief Visionary Officer at The Little Pressroom and Past President of the Middlebury Rotary Club, that I originally planned to use for our District Conference up at Jay Peak, VT, in early May. Because of the continuing concerns and risks related to the pandemic, we have once again made the difficult decision that a large in-person gathering indoors for three days would not be advisable.  However, there is more to this story!
If indoors for three days is not a good idea in early May, I am hopeful that as we move into warmer weather in June, a one-day, outdoor event may be very possible which would provide an opportunity to bring us together safely.  Currently, the District Leadership Team is exploring several options.  
 
Because of this cancelation, there are a number of very important events which would have taken place at Jay Peak that require us to make some adjustments as we move forward.  Among them are the Speech Contest finals, the Rise Against Hunger service project, highlighting New Generations, the Annual District Business Meeting, continuing conversations around our developing Strategic Plan, and various training opportunities to strengthen our clubs.  Please know that I am going to work very hard at seeing that all the components of my original vision for a District Conference are still realized before the end of this Rotary Year.  We need to ADAPT one more time!  And I will be using this logo to help identify these components of our District Conference/Fair/Changeover/Training events.  So, please stay tuned for more information in the coming months.
 
With our deposit still in place from PDG Richard’s year (2020), DGE Caroline is beginning to focus her attention on Jay Peak for May 2023.  (Friends, we are going to make this happen in our lifetime!) 
 
In the meantime, let’s keep on Serving to Change Lives! And in that vein, I encourage you to take some time each month to look through the Club News on our District website to take inspiration from the many ways we are all already serving and changing lives.
 
DG Mike