Bob Parkinson (Lexington Park club) began his talk with comments about his recent visit with the new Rotary International Japanese president SakuJi Tanaka whose theme for the year is “Peace Through Service.” At the local level this means people using their time and skills to help other people—each doing what he does best.

“In our district there are 60+ Rotary clubs,” said Bob. ”Annapolis is the largest with 162 members, and there are six clubs with under 10 members.” During the past year, membership admissions and attritions have both been about 240 people, hence a static membership account. Bob hopes that the North Bethesda Club can raise its membership to 45 during the coming year, and that other clubs will be able to add to their ranks. District 7620 will continue to support the International Rotary project of conquering polio with funding for vaccinations, and our District is also obligated for the completion of a grant to Gallaudet College in D. C. This $500,000 project began about 15 years ago with a grant of $250,000 from a single donor, and today there is $65,000 still outstanding

• [fancy_link color=”black” link=”https://nbrotary.org/dg-video-2/”]Watch the video from his speech[/fancy_link]

As advertised, a good bit of time was spent last week by Lasse Syversen on a description of the club’s new membership roster. During his presentation, it turned out that only a few club members present used our web site, all of which prompted Lasse to express his opinion as to whether or not we should be offering this membership benefit. It is your bulletin editor’s opinion that more members will use the web site now that it contains our membership roster.

President Gary Lett expressed his concern about the club’s recent decline in attendance at club meetings. For the most part, this has been due to the fact that a number of members (including club directors and officers) are not attending our Friday meetings or making up at other clubs due to work conflicts. Assistant District Governor Greg Wimms  was on hand and spoke about membership, noting that we would be getting help from- George Nash.

Captain Nick Strocchia is a member of the U.S. Air Force Reserve, assigned to the 4th Combat Camera Squadron which is scheduled to deploy to Camp Lemmonnier in Djibouti, a small country in northeast Africa, where he will be the Officer in Charge of a team of twelve combat camera operators who will supply directed imagery support to the command. The mission is to support operations in Combined Joint Operating Area to enhance partner national capacity, promote regional stability, dissuade conflict and protect U.S. and Coalition interests.

Nick explained that the mission in Africa has both a humanitarian aspect, as well as a national defense perspective. He noted that wars cannot be fought with strictly kinetic weapons. He stressed that engaging the local populace and educating them through a “hearts and minds” campaign is necessary to ensure regional stability. Combat Camera is a key enabler to this aspect of warfare, which bears far fewer casualties than an occupation strategy.