President Jeff’s Farewell Address – June 20, 2013

The Rotary Club of Salem wishes to thank outgoing Club President Jeffrey A. Van Dorn for his year of service to the Club. 

A Rotary Recap of Jeff’s Farewell address to our Club follows:

Recognition of outgoing Board members:

David K. Bruce
Lenora Shively Downing (shown in picture)
Cindy Smith

Thank you for your service to the Rotary Club of Salem.  While it is the President goosenorge who get to stand up here every week and lead the Club, the real work gets done by the Board Members and Committee heads.  Thank you David, Lenora and Cindy for your service to the Board and a special thanks to Lenora for her service as past-President.

Recognition of Club Secretary Janis Augustine:

As you all know, Janis is our Club Secretary and has held this position for a long time, certainly since I have been in the Club.  Janis is retiring from her position as Library Director in Salem this year and has decided to retire also from her position as Club Secretary.  Thank you so much Janis for your outstanding service to our Club and we all wish you the best of health and happiness.

Incoming Club President Samuel R. Carter congratulates President Jeff for successfully completing his term.

President Jeff’s comments on his Rotary Year 2012-2013 follow:

Wow, it has been a wonderful year.  As I was working to put the slide show together—and I need to recognize and thank my daughter Erica who created it for us—I realized all of the things that Canada Goose Dame we have done that we either didn’t have pictures of or couldn’t include unless we had made a much long video.  It is really hard to condense all of work we’ve done into a six minute slide show!

•    In addition to the Baseball game, our Family of Rotary committee planned outings for us at a Roanoke College basketball game and the recent barbecue event at the Salem Museum.  Thanks to Tom Mohr and Gary Phillips and their committee for arranging those times for fun and fellowship.
•    We showed the PTSD event at the VA Hospital but our Military Committee also organized events honoring veterans on Veteran’s Day and on D-Day.  Thanks to John Hahn, Randy Foley, Herm Reavis and the rest of that committee for all you do to honor our local veterans.
•    We’ve helped out those less fortunate in our community through Holiday meal deliverys at Thanksgiving and Christmas  Thanks to Mooch and to Mike Mayo for your leadership on that Committee and thanks to Victor Giovanneti and the folks at Lewis Gale for preparing the meals that we were able to give away.
•    We donated dictionaries to all Salem elementary third graders.  June Long always heads up that project for us and does a great job.
•    Also for a our local youth, we sent two Salem High students to the Rotary World Affairs seminar in Wisconsin and for the first time in quite a while, we sponsored a student to attend the Rotary Youth Leader Award or RYLA program presented by our District.
•    Our Club spearheaded the District’s response to Hurricane Sandy and we sent over 50 disaster buckets to New Jersey to be distributed by Rotarians there.  Thanks to our Disaster Committee, in particular to Bill Long and Danny Hall.
•    Another important accomplishment this year is that we have revamped and modernized our Web site.  A huge thank you to Ed Heurtematte and Ken England for their leadership on that project.

These are only examples of some of the projects or activities that weren’t shown on the video.  For anyone who led a committee, worked on a service project or donated time to Rotary—and that is everyone here—thank you so very much.  The reason this Club is so strong is that we have so many active and compassionate Rotarians.  Thanks for all you do.
The success of our Rotary Year could also be measured by numbers.  If we look at it that way, we can see how much good we’ve done.

•    We donated 103 coats, 32 caps, and 29 pairs of gloves in our coat drive.  In our last food drive alone, we donated over $600.00 and 300 pounds of food to the Salem Food Pantry.  This was one of several food drives we had this year.
•    We recognized 26 new Paul Harris Fellows and 11 multiple Paul Harris Fellows.  Considering that each represents a donation of $1000 to the Rotary Foundation, that is $37,000 we’ve given as a Club or as individual Rotarians to help Rotary do good around the world.
•    Through our District 7570 Wheelchair project, which was District Governor Woody’s special project and was chaired by our own June Long, members of this Club donated over 100 wheelchairs that were then distributed in several Caribbean Island nations.
•    Most importantly, through our combined efforts with OSD, ODAC and the Star-B-Q, we were able raise and then donate back to the community over $50,000 to a wide variety of charitable, community and international projects.  That is an accomplishment we should all be very proud of.

As a result of your efforts, our Club was recognized at the District Level with the Gold Club Award as well as 4 District Awards, if we count the Douglas Newton Communications Award given to Bill Ordnorff.  I am proud to say that is more than any other Club in this District.

Speaking of Bill Orndorff, we did experience great sadness in our Club this year when our friend Bill passed away suddenly last Fall after a bike race.  Bill—you have been and will be greatly missed.

A year ago I stood before you as incoming President.  It  really is hard to believe that a whole year has already passed.  At that time, I reflected with you on the meaning of our motto for this Rotary Year—Peace Through Service.  At that time I shared with you a quote from Robert Fulghum the author of the book All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten.  He said:  “Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away.”

As a Club, I think we’ve done a great job this year, not just wishing for peace.  We’ve worked hard to make peace through our many projects; we’ve done much to foster peace through our donations to worthy organization at home and abroad, and we are and have given away Peace through our service as Rotarians.

In closing, I’d like to thank all of my Board members, Committee Chairs, Co-chairs and everyone else who has worked so hard to make this a wonderful Rotary year.  I’d like to thank in particular past-President Lenora for all her hard work to pave the way for me this year and I’d like to thank Soon to Be President Sam for all of his help.  The Club will be in good hands next year with Sam.

It has been my honor and my great privilege to serve you as President for this past year.  I thank you very much for that opportunity.  With your help, we have lived up to our Motto of PEACE THROUGH SERVICE and I thank you again for all of your support.