Having returned from DisCon 2011, I wanted to let you know that our DG Kim put on a show that will be remembered for a long time. The event was staged in the Lombard Westin outside of Chicago. Not a single detail was overlooked. She could not have represented  our club in any finer fashion.  

The two extraordinary highlights were the the flash mob in downtown Chicago Millennium Park to highlight the End Polio Now campaign of RI and the Tonight Show featuring the RI President. President Elect; Treasurer; incoming and outgoing RI Trustees; President's representative and other distinguished RI dignitaries talking about their visions for Rotary. Even President Ray commented on the fact that this not only hadn't happened at a District Conference before ( because he doesn't attend them) but likely had never happened in a public forum. Leave it to our KimPOSSIBLE to assemble such a group and then have them speak to us in depth about Rotary and its future.

 

The rest of the conference was equally well planned and orchestrated. If you were unable to attend you would have been proud of our Club's contributions to all aspects of the festivities; In  particular: Brandi everywhere, Linda and Mike Mackool setting up the carnival extraordinare; Jane and John Kronner running the auction; Diane Strickler and her daughter Lynne running media camp; Bob Bashara working backstage and as auctioneer; Amy Gennaro counting the auction proceeds; Mark and Molly Brooks also with the carnival with Past President and former 2 time DG John Brooks emceeing many of the sessions; John and Sherri Conway and I am sure a couple others I missed and apologize for. Bill Scott put together an great display of club works. Dimpho and Hugo (and his whole family) were featured in the Exchange Student presentations. Obviously Kim and Dave were everywhere as the hostess and host. Few will forget the sight of Egyptian Queen Kim riding in on the shoulders of her man servants including Mike and Bob in togas.

The plenary sessions featured presentations on the 3 Million Pound Challenge with a surprise video by Mike; the turkey challenge featuring Liz Smith and Bob; and the Rotary Literacy Initiative with a presentation that included our inbound VTT team from Australia.  A former Ambassadorial Scholar and Literacy Expert flew in that day from California to discuss Literacy and Rotary. Her talk was the highlight of the session and my opportunity to meet and compare notes afterwards was invaluable. Her goal in coming was to find out what we were doing to combat illiteracy as she was trying to do the same in California. We reported that in the past year with the help of the District we had trained 70 tutors; raised more than $45,000; provided nearly 40 computers and collected, sorted and redistributed nearly 160,000 books to community based literacy programs in the City.

Enjoying the festivities were Pete and Fran Higbie; Florence Seltzer; Jess Harrison; Bill and Jackie Scott; Paul Rentenbach; Dick and Susan  Allison, and Mary Tipp (minus Mike, of course.)

The club was less successful with regard to Major Awards. DG Elect Michael Dubin of the Windsor St Clair club was in charge of these selections. The Hedke award went to Windsor 1918.  As is the custom no details of the selection were given. Grosse Pointe was mentioned as one of the 7 clubs compiling more than 600 points for the year.

Our InterAct Club was recognized by RI and we will present that award tomorrow when they run our meeting.

There were many toasts given throughout the Conference. I would like to give a final one. To DG Kim and Dave on a job very well done. DisCon 2011 was your finest hour.