D9212 District Governor (DG) Patrick Obath Message

We have also experienced a ramped-up growth in numbers in the past month with clubs around the District actively inducting new members. My earnest desire is to grow our numbers in the District by 50% by the end of this Rotary year. I also hope we can increase all clubs to a minimum of 25 members in the next few months. The District Governor’s PHF challenge is coming up well. We have over 30 Rotarians who have fully paid for the challenge and many others who are actively paying up in installments. The challenge is open to the first-time contributors, those seeking to be multiple Paul Harris Fellows and Rotaractors. The challenge is on a first-come, first-serve basis, and up to a maximum of 100 Rotarians. I will award a Paul Harris Fellow to the club president with the highest number of PHF challenge uptakes. If such a club has more than twelve PHFs during the year, I will award the president with an additional PHF. Should the second-ranking club exceed nine PHFs, the president shall receive a PHF award. I encourage clubs to take up the challenge as it ends on 30th November 2020 for Rotarians and 31st January for Rotaractors.

Zoom! Zoom!

In working with the new norm of digital meetings, I have now lost count on the number of hours I have spent on Rotary digital (or Zoom) meetings. I am well on the way to concluding the individual club “visits’ to meet the boards and discuss their progress on their annual plans and also attend the club assemblies. Despite being digital, the meetings have been intimate as we listen and help clubs on a personalized basis. In a big departure from the norm, this virtual meeting opportunity has made it possible for me to have various District Exco members attend and who can answer or challenge club boards on specific areas in their specialization. It has also been great having the District Governor-Elect Alex Nyaga and District Governor Nominee Azeb Asrat (who with me are jointly known as the Troika) attend as it ensures seamless leadership in the District. I started my physical visits in the last month. These are also being done differently this year. Instead of visiting each club individually, I will be making each visit to a cluster of clubs centered around an Assistant Governor or maybe two together. These will be fellowship visits and the more the merrier. I will also visit a project or two that each group of clubs will select based on the value that my visit to the

project (s) will add.

I visited the Coast and spent the first day with the Rotary Clubs of Voi and Taveta who arranged that we all meet at Mwatate to celebrate the RC Mwatate charter ceremony as the key event. The event was followed by a joint meeting the next day in Watamu. The Rotary Clubs of Malindi and Kilifi came together to work with the host club

Watamu to invigorate its membership drive. The third day was a whirlwind of three engagements starting with a breakfast meeting with the Rotary Clubs of Mombasa North Coast and Mtwapa immediately followed by a fitness fellowship to work off the breakfast. I then had a wonderful lunch with the Rotary Clubs of Bahari, Bamburi, Kilindini, and Nyali where we discussed the structure of the District and what opportunities this offered for the clubs. The day ended with the ‘Super Duper” induction of 25 members into the Rotary Club of Mombasa – the second oldest club in Kenya and the third oldest in Africa.

This was the jewel of a phenomenal induction of 54 new members

during the Coast visit. Many thanks to all the clubs I visited last month for your efforts in preparing for the visits. I was invigorated by the positive energy from clubs and their leaderships, and as a District Governor, I cannot ask

for more!

“Rotaract’s core goal is to develop leaders.”

-Rtr. Kennedy Gayah District Rotaract Representative (DRR) Rotary International District 9212 (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan)

Message from the DRR Going back to basics in year of OPPORTUNITIES

Not so long after I was elected to serve as the District Rotaract Representative did I get to reevaluate the reason why I chose to present my name for candidature. An opportunity that helped me further understand what we could achieve in the Rotary new year.

Five months into the planning year, I joined a group of amazing Rotaractors in an exciting anniversary ceremony. To get there, I had to travel over a hundred and fifty kilometers, this was after a long and exhausting morning in the office. I was looking forward to having a fun session. Oh my! I was not disappointed. An evening event turned into an all-nighter. The well-planned program, great audience, and an innovative entertainment team. I could go on and on about it but that would mean we have to write a separate article. This night would become memorable to me because of a mind-opening conversation that I had with Rotaractor who would later become the club’s President-Elect.

While she was excited about leadership in the club, she was afraid that the enthusiasm around volunteering was quietly but quickly dwindling. Her concern was drawn from the apparent lack of a clear direction and vision for her club and, where there was, it was clouded by a sense of misplaced priorities. This rapidly began a common school of thought amongst different incoming club leaders as I expanded my research pool.

Those who came before us have done an extraordinary job getting us here. Their commitment and vision have seen our district grow in numbers and the magnitude of our impact in ourcommunities. They have placed us at an opportune position to believe that we can