Our Chartering Dinner is a huge success, propelling us to service and fellowship!

January 19, 2012. What a night! On this particular Thursday evening, the Rotary Club of Millcreek had a blow out party with over 80 people to celebrate their charter from Rotary International. 28 members were present. 5 members could not make it. Many members brought soon-to-be-members to check out the festivities and pick up applications!

Rotarians from Salt Lake Club (President Colleen Malouf, President Nominee John Pace, State Legislator Patrice Arent), Park City Sunrise Club (President Ken Barfield), Hispano-Latino Club (President Alicia Gomez, Past President Martha Velasco, and President Elect Mabel Langford), and of course, our sponsoring club of Sugar House Rotary (President Ennis Gibbs, Past Presidents Therese Milad, and E. J. Passey) were there to cheer us on.

District Governor Rick Cambra presented our Charter from Rotary International, and Assistant Governor Bev Christy helped pass out pins to the new and re-upping Rotarians. Many thanks to Past District Governor Ralph Montgomery and his wife Shirley for joining us in our celebrations. Also, we were thrilled to have visiting Watertown, Wisconsin Rotarians Josh and Sandee Macht come to the party and give Charter President Megan Dunn our very first club flag!

Members and guests enjoyed the social hour at the Cottonwood Country Club, with piano accompaniment by Rotaracter Andrew Olsen. We also cannot thank enough the Salt Lake Rotaracters who manned our Registration table. A special shout out to Rotaract President Jerika Michel, who also called an entire roster of Utah Rotary leadership in advance of our event.

Centerville Farmington Rotarian Bruce Powell did more than come to the dinner, he also (in his typical Service Above Self way) picked up the monks from the Theravadan Buddhist Temple in Layton who gave our invocation and chanted their best wishes for our self-discipline, service to humanity, and generosity.

Many City Academy Interactors attended our event, including Kylee Massey who did a beautiful job of singing America the Beautiful as part of our Program. Thanks RC Millcreek member Sonia Woodbury (Principal) for arranging all that, and bringing so many guests, including the club advisor, Mandy Porter.

We appreciate all the efforts of our sponsoring club of Sugar House, and the inspiring words of club President Ennis Gibbs during our Program.

Special Representative of the District Governor, and now club member, Judy Zone, presented the club with an engraved gong and stand to use in place of the traditional club bell to begin and end meetings.

As the District Governor said, Rotary Club of Millcreek is not a traditional club. We have Utah’s first ‘Happy Hour’ club, holding two business meetings the first two Thursdays at 5:15-6:15pm each month. Our other two meetings are a social and a service project. Our club has decided to focus our local service efforts on the refugee community. For more information, contact our club president Megan Dunn at megan@xmission.com

District Governor Cambra remarked that Rotary Club of Millcreek is not only Utah’s newest club, it is the first club chartered during his term, and the first non-traditional club in our Rotary Zone (7 Rotary Districts).

Rotary Club of Millcreek would like to thank Vice President Laurie Summers-Pisani for her work with the Cottonwood Country Club to organize the menu for the dinner, and her work to coordinate the entertainment, prepare and print the Commemorative Programs. Club Secretary Christine Casper sent out the invitations and organized all the RSVPs. Treasurer Ken Klingler will be formulating the financials after this event, including generous gifts from Rotary Club of Logan and Rotarian Paul Halliday. We want to thank our International Service Chair, Peter Ingle, for arranging for the monks to deliver the invocation. As usual, Community Service Chair Miriam Kramer was ready to help in any and many ways, including taking photographs of the evening.

We also want to recognize the efforts of our Vocational Service Chair Laura Rogers and our Club Service Chair Annie Nielsen. They are actively serving our community and club and bringing in new members – as are all our members. According to District Trainer and Millcreek Rotarian Susan Marks, our club “gives the District 2% growth (vs. zero as of the 11/28/11 report), or 22% of the District goal of 150 new members by June 30, 2012.”

We hope our focus on business networking, active socializing, local and international service continues to grow Utah Rotary, and grow the Rotary ethic of Service Above Self in all our business dealings and friendships. As Charter President Megan Dunn said in her remarks, quoting Albert Adams of the Rotary Club of Atlanta, Georgia in his address to the 1920 Rotary Convention in Atlantic City: “Friendship is the craving which brought Rotary into existence and is the thing that will keep Rotary a living, vital force in the world for all time. Friendship is the very foundation of our organization.”