Governor's Message

by Gov Don Dudey

By the time you read this, you would have celebrated your Thanksgiving Holiday. I hope you had a great day with lots of good food and time to remember all the things we have to be thankful for. However, I realize there are those among us as well as many others that are in need of our help. In today's economic position, there are many more children and adults who need our help.

This leads me to my comments for this month. Kiwanis is an organization of volunteers who are dedicated to changing the world one child and one community at a time.

Over the past two months I have had the privilege to visit a dozen or so clubs, three official governor visits and three regional growth summit meetings. From these visits, I have found that Kiwanis clubs are doing outstanding service in their communities. Especially now that the holiday season is approaching, many clubs are conducting either fundraising events or support events in their communities. From ringing the Salvation Army Christmas Bell, to conducting a Peanut Day fundraiser, to making and decorating gifts, trees and other holiday decoration - all to be given to others. These events involve many hours and many people so they can benefit others.

I have found that no matter how small the club, the work gets done, either by long hours by the club members or working smarter by collaborating with other civic or community organizations to get the project completed. We need to complete these projects by doing whatever it takes to make it work..

I did notice that many clubs could use more hands to get their projects completed. More hands would mean more members to help accomplish these projects. Membership with many clubs is now becoming a major problem - how do we get new members? I don't have all the answers to that question, but the District does have a dedicated group of members who are more than willing to come and talk to your club on developing ways that perhaps could work in your club.

Before any club can grow, it has to have the desire to change and grow. Members will not just appear, wanting to join your club. It takes work on the part of the whole club for this to really be successful.

All it takes is a telephone call to your Division LTG or you can call me, and we will help set up a meeting of our District Growth Team to visit with your club. I would love to be invited to your club or Division to talk about membership or any other topic you would like to visit about.

As mentioned above, a Kiwanis service project is what Kiwanis is all about. With these projects, we meet, we work with and we socialize with many people who are not Kiwanians. If they are as dedicated to service as you are, why not ask them to join Kiwanis so that they can accomplish more as a group than an individual. Kiwanis literature can very easily be made available to these individuals to promote who we are. Or, just an invitation to your meeting/meal as a "thank you" or "get to know you better" can be accomplished with little planning or cost. These are just a few ways we can use our service projects to help increase membership within our clubs.

As you will recall in my October article, I stated that one of my goals was to increase service hours and service projects by 12% for each club and the district. As you can see in the chart below that would equate to 1 additional service project for each club and 9 additional service hours per month. I believe that you and your clubs can accomplish this goal with just a little extra work. It also might require a few extra hands to do the work, so a few new members would really help this equation.

Actual for 2008-09	179 Clubs	12 Months
District Total Projects	Club - Year	Club - Month
14,446	81	6.7
District Total Service Hours	Club - Year	Club - Month
170,875	955	80
Projected for 2009-2010	+ 12%	+ 12%
District Total Projects	Club - Year	Club - Month
16,180	90	7.5
District Total Service Hours	Club- Year	Club-Month
191,380	1070	89

What do you think? Can we accomplish these goals? I believe we can. Together we can change the world one child and one community at a time.

Before I close, I want to wish everyone a very happy holiday, whatever your religious beliefs are; so we can all celebrate them in a reverent and joyous way.

Don L. Dudey
Governor