Most of us become members of Rotary because someone encourages us to do so. For me that was friend and colleague in the arts, Deanna Relyea, and my father-in-law, Gene Ingram. I knew Deanna because my Art Fair office was located in the Kerrytown Concert House, where she was the Founder and Director. And I sometimes heard her practicing with Harold Haugh, one of our former Rotary song leaders, in the first floor concert space.
Gene Ingram had come to UM as the new Director of Purchasing from Nebraska in 1965. He had a strong service ethic and right away became a member of Rotary here, in this very room. I met Gene in the late 1960’s, when I started dating his son, Rick. Gene and Deanna became my sponsors in 1998, when I first joined the RCAA. I don’t think I would have joined Rotary if it had not been for their support and encouragement.
My next encourager and supporter in Rotary was Ashish Sarkar. He asked me to take on the chair of the International Humanitarian Projects Co. Which was a perfect job for me since I was an exchange student myself in Brazil in 1970. After two years as chair of IHPC Ashish asked me to move on up to the Board of Directors as Director of Club Outreach.
After I served my two years on the RCAA Board I hadn’t found my volunteer niche yet, and Collyer Smith asked me if we could meet and discuss what volunteer job I might take on next. Collyer showed up to our coffee with then Past President Greg Stejskal. At that point I thought, why is Greg here? When they asked me to take on the role of President I was surprised because that would make me the third woman president in a row for our club. But they were confident that that would not be an issue.
The best thing about taking on a leadership role in a Rotary club is that you get to know some fellow members really well.
As many of you may realize, we are unusual as a Rotary Club. Most rotary clubs have 25-30 members. The last few years we have had around 250. Most recently we were noted as the
-largest Rotary club in District 6380
-largest Rotary Club in Michigan
-the 34th largest club in the USA
-and the 53rd largest club in the world!! (out of 34,000+)
We need to acknowledge and celebrate this achievement! And of course work hard to maintain it, if not grow it!
I have met Presidents of Clubs who have to arrange for speakers themselves. In comparison we are a well-oiled machine. We have an amazing Program Committee, currently expertly chaired by Yolanda Whiten. They work hard to bring a variety of speakers to us every single week, which usually totals more than 45 speakers every year!! Occasionally a speaker has to cancel at the last minute and when that happens they are able to line up someone else in less than 24 hours!
With a Club our size, paid administrative staff is essential. This past year, Lori Walters, who had been our Executive Director for three years, had to give her notice. So, in mid year, still dealing with COVID restrictions, we formed a search committee under the great leadership of Dawn Johnson. Fortunately, in fairly quick order, we found Emily Olson, who is proving to be most capable! In addition, three of our former paid staff, John White, Dave Keosaian and Lori, are all now members!
Probably one of our biggest challenges this year was learning how to have hybrid meetings and then switching from hybrid to zoom several times. Originally we expected to go back to the Anderson Room in the Michigan Union in early September. But the Union wasn’t ready, and Omicron showed up, and October 6th became the date of our first hybrid meeting. Due to the rising number of COVID cases in our community we switched back to “Zoom only” for January and February. On March 2nd we came back to the Union and hybrid meetings and we have stayed with that set up ever since. In all, we had 20 RCAA meetings that were zoom only, and 28 that were hybrid.
Our weekly number attending on Zoom is usually around 50-60 and our in person count is around 25-30. Thanks to both volunteer and paid staff we are usually successful with our hybrid meetings. Last year, when I was in a training about running a hybrid meeting it was strongly suggested that hybrid meetings have speakers both in person and through Zoom. I think that all of our hybrid meetings have had that combo. The one thing that happened a few weeks ago, that I never expected, was for me to lead a hybrid meeting while on Zoom myself. A back up in person moderator is needed, just in case the technology fails, but it worked better than we would have thought.
This past spring it was my pleasure to host, as speakers, the 10 other women who have served before me as President of the RCAA. As Jennifer Jones becomes our first woman President for Rotary International I am particularly proud that our club has already had 11 women serve as President:
These women include: Elaine Didier as the first in 1993, followed by: Anne Glendon, Patricia Garcia, Ingrid Sheldon, Beth Fitzsimmons, Nishta Bhatia, Maurita Holland, Karen Kerry, Rosemarie Rowney, Joanne Pierson.
Former Male Presidents who are still members of our Club include: Russ Reister-most senior/1981-82, Dan Balbach, Jim Irwin, Downs Herold, Bob Foster, Tom Conlin, Dave McDowell, Bob Buchanan, Joe Fitzsimmons, Paul Glendon, Norman Herbert, Jim Cook, Lou Callaway, Jr., Ashish Sarkar, Collyer Smith & Greg Stejskal.
How great that we still have all these leaders with us today. We have more past Presidents in our Club than some Clubs have members!
This year our active membership committee, ably led first by Norma Sarkar, then Aleia MacDonald and then Marlena Studer, added 23 new members to our Club. This is an amazing accomplishment considering how COVID is still with us. They also developed and ran several monthly meetings to get our new members more involved. Those new members include Michael Barg, Scott Bunnay, Michelle Deatrick, Carolyn Hiatt, Ray Kelley, Eric Macke, Lawrence Marentette, Sofia Nordenstam, Mehmet Onder, Ademola Osofisan, Nancy Peel, Miriam Perry, Edwin Portugal, Victoria Price, Ellen PutneyMoore, Sue Shink, Arianne Slay, Brian Stenger, Missy Stults, Spencer Symington, Carlos Valderrama, Lori Walters and Cyril White. Welcome to these new members!
As some of you may know, as a Club we have three high school scholarship programs. STRIVE, Service Above Self and an endowed scholarship fund at WCC. This year, after intensive research and recommendations by Daphne Schalbetter and Andrea Bare, the Board decided to use unclaimed STRIVE scholarships to create a charitable designated scholarship endowment with the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation for their Community Scholarship Program. The goal of this program is to increase post-secondary degree attainment for Washtenaw County students with a specific focus on students who are economically disadvantaged, youth of color, and/or the first generation in their family to attend college.
One other area of work for our Board this year was the update of many of our policies for our Club. Steve Kesler and Norma Sarkar helped bring about the update of our Emeritus Policy. Arthur Williams led the update for our Youth Policy and Dawn Johnson led the updates of our Rotary Cares, Attendance, Policy on Politics and Guidelines for Speakers. Not exciting work, but necessary to doing our work as well as we can.
As we were attempting to forecast, in spring of 2021, what might happen in the year ahead we decided to budget a conservative amount of net profit from our major fundraiser for the year, the GTO. That conservative amount was $28,000. I’m very pleased to again congratulate the committee on raising a total net of $57,765, almost twice what was predicted! The hard work of the committee, Greg Stejskal & Charlie Koopman, co-chairs, along with Kathy Waugh, Laurie Atwood, Kate Van Horn, Lori Walters, Joe Diederich, and Sal Barbatano. And that group, plus Joanne & Agnes and Emily, are already working hard to make our GTO successful this year on Sept. 14th.
Three of our committees, Anti Racism Co., the Public Image Co and the Peace Committee came together this year to help sponsor “Embracing our Differences”. This project presents sixty giant works of art, displayed in four parks (including Gallup Park) and celebrate the diversity of the human family. This display is up through September, so I hope you will be able to see it at least once and maybe even volunteer as a greeter.
All of this is just a part of what the RCAA has done this year. The written annual report that I will write in the next few months, with the assistance of our chairs of committees, will record and report on the totality of what we have accomplished. Until then be sure to take a look at Joanne’s very creative rhyming remarks, which focuses on many of our great works as volunteer opportunities and was published in the “Rotarian” earlier this week. I agree with Joanne, if you want to have more fun in Rotary just get out there and volunteer for something!
Deanna Relyea and Gene Ingram may have gotten me started in Rotary, but there’s no way I could have fulfilled my year as President without the help and support of my husband of 49 years, Rick Ingram. And of course, many thanks to my fellow Rotarians and the rest of my family for their love and support, Ben & Kendra, Leah and Pat and grandsons Trevor and Ryan.
The President of Rotary International for this past year, Shekhar Mehta, chose the motto “Serve to Change Lives” for his presidential year. I think we can be confident as a Club that many lives were changed and improved because of our numerous efforts.
Thanks to each of you for your important service in 21-22.
Thank you.
Susan L. Froelich
Rotary Club of Ann Arbor President 2021-2022
