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CATHERINE B.
BROWNING
 88th
President of The Rotary Club of Charlotte
By: Henry Bostic
Charlotte Rotary began a new year in a new home and installed a
new leader. Catherine Browning became the 88th president of
Charlotte’s oldest Rotary Club in the first meeting at the Adam’s
Mark Hotel. The Club’s oldest member, Powell Majors, himself
president 58 years ago, pinned the president’s pin on Catherine
while noting that she was taking over in a new place and in Rotary’s
100th anniversary year. Powell said she will maintain the club’s
“high standards.”
In “pinning” Tom as past president, Powell said he could “join the
26 other former presidents and enjoy himself and not have to worry
about microphones that don’t work, not enough parking spaces and not
having enough time for the speaker.”
He is “responsible, caring, humble, generous and most of all he has
a great love for Charlotte Rotary,” new President Catherine said of
Past President Tom.” He led us to a “gret two double O three, two
double O four!” After briefly reviewing the highlights of his year,
Past President Tom said his year as president, although it came
after his retirement, “ranks high in my life’s journey.” He thanked
all club members, especially those who served in leadership roles,
for their support and help throughout the year implementing this
year’s theme, “Lend A Hand,” so well. He also thanked his wife for
her support. Barbara was unable to attend; she’s recuperating from
orthopedic surgery.
Tom said President Catherine has the “vision, organization skills
and motivation” to be an excellent leader. “Things will happen” this
year.
The club’s thank you gift to President Tom was “supposed-to-be” a
leather edition of Rotary’s 100th anniversary history as well as
gifts in his name to the Rotary International Foundation and to the
Tom and Barbara Robertson Endowed Fund at Virginia Tech. The club
sang a special tribute, “He’s a Yankee Doodle President” to Tom. It
was written by David Erdman and sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle
Dandy. Tom’s birthday is July 4th.
“He’s a Yankee Doodle President
A man on whom we all rely.
We’re real live nephews of our President Tom,
Who was born on the Fourth of July.
Rotary has grown and prospered.
Tom has led a GRET, GRET year.
So Happy Birthday Tom, to you: You will be remembered.
Our hearts will always hold you near.
Happy Birthday!
President Catherine said she has an “outstanding team to serve” this
year. “It’s and honor and pleasure to lead the club. I thank you for
the opportunity.”
Earlier in the meeting, Pender McElroy, new chair of the Rotary
Foundation committee, presented President Tom with a Paul Harris
Fellowship for his younger son Jeffrey, a nuclear engineer with Duke
Power. Jeffrey joins Tom, wife Barbara and older son Mark as Paul
Harris Fellows. Before the change of command, President Tom thanked
the Events Committee, chaired by Leigh Derby, and especially Knights
Vice President and General Manager Bill Blackwell, for the outing
last week at Knights’ Stadium. More than 200 members, their families
and friends attended. Club members recognized the on-going hard work
of Executive Secretary Sandy Osborne with a standing ovation. Thomas
Moore “did his thing at the piano,” as usual, throughout the meeting
as well as sang the national anthem.
Head Table:
John Stedman, Marilynn Bowler, Powell
Majors, Catherine Browning, Tom Robertson, Herb Harriss, Tim Newman
Visitors and Guests:
Tigger Alexander; Music: Thomas Moore
and David Erdman; Invocation: John Lassiter
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Did You Know…
(Ron Kimble) |
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Charlotte Rotary
started the 2003-04 Rotary year with 312 members, and finished
the year on June 30, 2004 with 330 members. 43 new members were
added during the year, with 24 resignations and 1 death for a
net gain of 18 members. Rotary International had asked all Clubs
to push hard for increased membership, since civic clubs all
over the world have been experiencing declines in membership the
past few years. Great work Charlotte Rotary – let’s make 2004-05
just as successful! |
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New Member Approval |
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The Classification
and Membership Committee recommend and the Directors approve for
consideration for all members, the following NEW MEMBER. Should
you question the eligibility of any nominee, please call the
Rotary Office by July 13th. You will be contacted by a member of
the Board. Otherwise, no reply is necessary and election will
proceed according to our bylaws. |
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Pam J.
Daigle
Classification:
Sponsor:
Endorser:
Endorser:
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Charlotte
Red Cross
Social Service-Red Cross
Richard
Bailey
Bert Voswinkel
Luther Fincher |
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Results of Recent Membership Survey
By
David Norman
In an effort to better understand what you, as members of this
club, are looking for in your club, we surveyed all members
about two months ago. Our intent was to try and ascertain (1)
what we’re doing right, in order to continue to build on our
strengths, and what we were not doing so right, to make
plans to fix. The survey, in both hardcopy form (to about 100
members) and email version (to 225 members), was designed to be
both confidential and anonymous and gather information about
what you value and how we perform as a club. We were astonished
at the response rate. We had over a 40% response! 47% of the
online surveys and 22% of the hardcopy surveys were returned.
Thanks for this incredible response rate.
Here’s what you said about what you
value
in our Rotary club:
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In rank order, you placed the highest value
on:
The Roster (average=6.39)
Topics, speakers and time allotted to meetings (average=6.39)
Fellowship (average=6.25)
Habitat House (average=6.04)
Newsletter (average=5.85)
You placed the lowest value on:
On-going Rotary education (average=4.68)
The singing (average=5.12)
International service projects (average=5.27) |
Similarly, when asked how the
performance
of our club is (on the same attributes), you said:
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Our highest performance is in:
The Roster (average-6.33)
Habitat House (average=6.15)
Newsletter (average=6.11)
Topics and Speakers (average=5.98)
Salvation Army (average 5.84)
And, our lowest performance was with:
On-going education (average-4.50)
Member orientation (average 4.96)
International service projects (average=5.05)
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These were all pretty good results. Moreover, we
were excited to know that we, generally, performed very well on
most of our activities. There were a couple more specific
questions, for example, “would you be supportive of a automatic
assessment for the Rotary Foundation?” There were virtually very
few in the middle on this question – you were either Very
Supportive (45 responses) or Not Supportive (32 responses). No
ambivalence with this group.
Typically, you joined Rotary, in order, for Networking, for
Speakers and then for Community Involvement. Finally, you were
somewhat supportive of stronger membership development, such as
targeting under-represented classifications and actively
recruiting members (especially CEO-types).
Your Board is already developing a plan to address these, and
other, issues from the survey results in four main areas: |
- Fellowship (such as having
several Fellowship events
- Education (especially for
new members)
- International and Rotary
Foundation (such as increased emphasis and attention)
- Meetings (such as changing
some things in HIGWIA and in table arrangements)
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You will be hearing more about
these, and other, issues from the Board over the next several
months. But, in the meantime, we heard you! Thank you for your
assistance with this membership survey. |
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Attendance
Record |
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7/04/04 |
7/01/03 |
| visitors &
guests |
10 |
11 |
| club
members |
187 |
174 |
| total
attendance |
197 |
185 |
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Wedding
Anniversaries |
13 Marilynn and Bob Bowler
17 Jan and Don Haack
17 Marjorie and Paul Smith
18 Debby and Bob Carlson
18 Ruth and Ken Samuelson
19 Dot and Jim Adams
19 Joy and Ken Poe |
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New Members | Resignations |
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| Birthdays and
Birthplaces |
13 Jim Evans, Charlotte, NC
13 Herb Harriss, Wilmington, NC
14 Bob Barber,
Albuquerque, NM
14 Bill Wood, Atlanta, GA
15 Erskine Harkey, Charlotte, NC
16 John Snyder, High Point, NC
18 Jody Billiard, Mulberry, KS
18 Tim Hunt, Durham, NC |
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