What Are We In Power For?
By
Dennis Valdes

Just 5 days to go before we host the Monday Night Fellowship. I’ve only been to one of these in my entire Rotary career and to be honest, I found it to be a gathering of District wannabes. Now here we are hosting the event itself. What gives?

Well, for one, our Governor Guiller has asked that each club host one night so that the cost of the fellowship can be borne across all 58 clubs in the District. In fact, the only other time we did host the event was when we were asked to host one – since that was two or three years ago, it’s really about time that we did this again.

For another, I have always felt that any event can be fun – provided the people who do attend are having fun also. At this Monday Night Fellowship, we are co-hosting with RC Makati Dasmarinas and RC Makati Urdaneta. Their Presidents, Rhoda Salas and Joseph Tambunting, are two of my cooler classmates. If we have a good attendance, I can assure one and all that the event will be fun.

Last week was a relatively slow Rotary week. I guess the year is really slowing down. Most of the District memos coming in these days are for final reports that we’re being asked to submit. Can you imagine that – a final report in March? This just shows that the Rotary presidential year is really 6 months of preparation BEFORE your term starts, followed by 6 months of hard work, then another 6 months of cooling down and HELPING the next guy move in.

And that is what I want to stress in today’s column: HELP us all have the best ever Paul Harris Cup. PE Paul is really working his *SS off (it’s a big one, too) on this project – I’ve gotten more text messages from him this past week alone than in all the time I’ve known him.

Levity aside, Paul really does need all of us to pitch in. Imagine that we only ask for everyone’s contribution ONCE each year. If the 4^th Paul Harris does not do well, would you like Paul and his team to be selling raffle tickets this October? If the thought is terrifying, then go out and meet – no, EXCEED – your P15,000 quota. If we all pull together, then we can keep Makati Ayala moving in the excellent path that our past presidents have set….

Our Guest Speaker this morning is Levi Berora, c/o our PP Arsenic Laurel, and Mr. Berora will discuss Social and Micro Entrepreneurship. We’ve thought for many years now about a micro-lending program at our RVC’s. Perhaps, Mr. Berora’s talk will point us in the right direction.

And that’s all for this morning. Enjoy your breakfast.