The Rotary Club of Comox Valley celebrated its newly-minted charter status on Feb. 20 at the Black Fin Pub in Comox with a standing-room crowd of Rotarians, city officials and charter members of the new club.
Many Rotarians from Comox Valley’s other four Rotary groups were in attendance to give their well-wishes to the new club. The Rotary Club of Comox, the new club’s sponsor into Rotary, showed its support with a gift of its original Rotary 4-Way Test banner from its chartering in 1974 and a generous gift to help the new club get off to a great start. Also in attendance were Rotary District 5020 Governor Tom Carroll, who presented the club charter and led the installation of the inaugural board, the Mayors Paul Ives of Comox, Larry Jangula of Courtenay and Leslie Baird of Cumberland, and several councillors and directors from the municipalities and regional district.
Rotary is an international organization with over 1.2 million members and 35,000 clubs around the world. The goal of Rotary is to bring together people to exchange ideas, form friendships and connections while taking action to make positive contributions to their communities. The Rotary Club of Comox Valley is eager to embrace Rotary’s service-before-self principles to bring more positive change to the Comox Valley. The Comox Valley is steeped with a rich Rotary history with four other established and prolific Rotary clubs, and is excited to learn from and collaborate with the existing clubs as well as embark on new projects to help better our area.
One of the biggest draws to this new club is its focus on offering a flexible meeting schedule and keeping mandatory costs as low as possible. The new club will meet twice a month, on the first Tuesday and third Wednesday, giving members more flexibility to be able to make one meeting per month even as professional and family schedules change.
The club will also emphasize using modern technologies to promote communication and transparency so members can stay up to date and participate in decisions even when they are not able to make meetings. Marrying the Rotary principles with a more flexible format and keeping mandatory costs low opens up an opportunity for many talented, energetic and community-driven people to become Rotarians and contribute through volunteering their time and expertise to the new club’s projects and goals.
As with all Rotary clubs, the new club will give members the opportunity to build friendships with positive and motivated people who come from different backgrounds and professions and share a desire to do good work for the betterment of our local communities. With a starting complement of over 60 members, the Rotary Club of Comox Valley is poised to make some positive waves in the paradise that is the namesake of the club.
If you are interested in finding out more about Rotary and whether the new club might offer the right opportunity for you to become a Rotarian, please visit comoxvalleyrotary.ca or contact the membership director Greg Chadwick by emailing membership@comoxvalleyrotary.ca.