A key issue in my Club visits this year is to ask all Clubs to keep the goals and efforts high for giving to the Rotary Foundation. Rotary year 2013-14 was an outstanding year for generous giving by our Clubs and Rotarians to the Rotary Foundation. As to Club level totals, special congratulations to the following:

1. Top 3 Clubs in Per Capita Giving:
   1. #1 Ingleside
   2. #2 Brownsville Sunrise
   3. #3 Laredo Gateway
2. Every Rotarian - Every Year - 100%:
   1. Calhoun County
   2. Corpus Christi Northwest
   3. Rio Grande City
   4. San Benito
3. 100% Sustaining Members:
   1. Calhoun County
   2. Rio Grande City
   3. San Benito
4. Clubs with $100 or more per capita - 28.
5. Clubs with highest total giving to Annual Fund:
   1. Corpus Christi: $31,817.44
   2. McAllen South: $21,025.00
   3. Harlingen: $13,995.00
   4. South Side Corpus Christi: $11,218.00
   5. Laredo Gateway: $10,579.00

The District’s September 20 Best Practices Seminar is shaping up as the same type of quality event the District Leadership Team put together for the District Assembly. Changes from the District Assembly are (1) we will focus exclusively in on three issues (Membership, Rotary Foundation and Rotary Public Image & Awareness) instead of 15 issues - thus more time to really focus on these key areas with a lot of additional ideas, concepts and time for discussion and idea sharing.

(2) I have ordered up an Italian food buffet lunch instead of fajitas and added fruit to the breakfast menu and more coffee!

Our guest keynote speaker will be Ken Boyd from California. He is an absolute dynamo. He not only led the effort which invented the IGNITE program, he has also served as a Director and Treasurer of Rotary International and previously served Rotary International as Chairman of the R.I. Membership Development Executive Steering Committee. Basically, we have one of Rotary International’s key experts on membership development coming as our workshop trainer and keynote speaker. But that is not all. We have added the following to our workshop faculty: (a) Jim Berg, Regional Rotary Foundation Co-ordinator for Zone 21b (expert on fundraising), and (b) Sherri Muniz, Assistant Regional Rotary Foundation Co-ordinator for Zone 21b (expert on Grants). As mentioned, after everybody has had an opportunity to attend Ken’s initial IGNITE workshop in the first workshop timeslot, we will split into 3 groups in separate rooms to focus on topics of choice. Jim and Sherri will be leading workshops in the Rotary Foundation room.

The event agenda is on the District website. On-line bookings are available on the District website or by mail (reservations are essential).

Consequently, I am looking forward to another big Rotary gathering in Kingsville on September 20 for this, our remaining Training Seminar for 2014.

— Art Zeitler
District Governor