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Minutarian Week 2: July 11, 2022

Are you excited about the upcoming season with the Jacksonville Jaguars and hoping that this will be their year? Whether you are a football fan or not, I am excited to tell you that through the hard work of Past District Governor Cynde Covington, the End Polio/Jaguars Partnership is back for the 2022 Jags season. Cynde and I are finalizing the details, but we have an especially exciting program for November. If your club has not appointed a Jaguars chair, please make sure that you have one so that we can move quickly as soon as the details are finalized.

Rotarians across the district and around the world have been horrified by the events in Ukraine, but you have stepped up and supported Rotary’s efforts with over $15 million donated to The Rotary Foundation and locally to the York Foundation. At the Vibrant Club Seminar at St. Johns River State College-Palatka on Saturday August 20, DGE John Tabor will provide an update for what we have done and what is planned for the future. In addition, we will have Julia Kalinski from the South Jacksonville Club present her firsthand perspective, as a Ukrainian, why your support is so important.

Speaking of Ukraine, did you catch the interview in Rotary (p.18) with North Jacksonville Past President Pat Mulvihill on how your almost $100,000 donations to the York Foundation have been used in Ukraine and what is happening with refugees in Northeast Florida. Pat’s leadership continues to be instrumental as chair of our Ukrainian Relief efforts.

If you have started making plans to attend the Rotary International Convention in Melbourne Australia May 27-31, it will be amazing. Maureen and I attended our first convention in 2014 in Sydney and I will tell you that the Australians know how to throw a party. We visited Melbourne in 2014 and there are so many exciting things happening along the Yarra River. We needed to choose a hotel so we chose one of the closest and will be staying at the Hilton Melbourne Little Queen Street, 18 Little Queen Street.

Have you signed up to attend our next RLI at Daytona State College-Palm Coast on Saturday August 6, 2022. This is a great opportunity to learn more about Rotary regardless of how long you have been a Rotarian.

Past President of Downtown Jacksonville Rotaract, Eustachius Roberts served as the Cultural Exchange Chair this past year for the Zone 34 Rotaract Committee and recently visited the District 7030 Rotaract conference in Barbados and realized that being a member of a local Rotaract Club only scratches the surface of the connections he made when meeting Rotaractors outside our district as he saw the immensity of Rotary International.

Eustachius Roberts in Bridgertown, Barbados