District Governor Beth Selby welcomed everyone to the District 7070 Connects Rotary Foundation Zoom Meeting and District Givernor Elect Mark Chip also welcomed the audience and thanked all of our speakers.

Over 50 Rotarians from all around District 7070, were delighted to hear from our keynote speaker at our June 3, 2020 District 7070 Connects Zoom meeting, Bryn Styles, RI Director 2012-14 and Foundation Trustee 2015 -17, and current Chair of the Rotary Peace Fellows Program for Rotary International. Bryn updated everyone on Rotary COVID-19 efforts and the Rotary Foundation. (Highlights of Bryn's presentation are in the files to the left of this page). 

Bryn talked about all of changes and adaptations Rotary International, The Rotary Foundation, our Zone, our Districts and our clubs have made with respect to COVID-19. Zoom and other platforms have let Rotarians still keep doing good in the world, have meetings, raise funds, and help everyone with our Rotary projects and our own COVID-19 projects world-wide. He noted that people are working from home. The RI Board is meeting on Zoom.. There will be no president's reps at District ocnferences next Rotary year. District Governors are being encouraged to make their visits virtual. The RI Convention will also be virtual.

He talked about the new Disaster Response Grants, District Grants, Global grants and the impact from COVID-19. He also talked about his Rotary Peace Fellows program,which in most cases has shifted to remote learning to earn the Master's Degrees and The certificate programs. He shared with us that there are over 1,400 Peace Fellow Alumni , all of whom are willing to come to our meetings and tell everyone about their area of expertise and the Rotary Peace Fellow Program.

He talked about the overall impact of the Rotary Foundation, and the need for additional funds to meet the requests for global grants, District Grants, Polio Eradication and the Peace Fellows program. . 

Past District Governor Ted Morrison, Chair of the Annual Programs Fund, updated the audience on the Annual Programs Fund , the Polio Fund and the Endowment Fund. He congratulated us on the most successful year in the history of District 7070 in donations and urged everyone to make one more donation, before June 30 to honour Bill Patchett. We are very close his $1 million (US Funds) dream.

Ted urged the President Elects to get their goals in as soon as possible for 2020-21, and urged them to educate the newer members of their clubs and get them motivated about the Rotary Foundation. As of June 1, we stood at $259, 651 in the Annual Programs Fund donations, $148,786 for Polio and $498,734 in the Endowment donations for this Rotary Year. 

Past District Governor ,Lars Henriksson, Chair of the Grants Committee,  told us about the special District Grants for  COVID-19 Response . He talked about the 40 requests for the $1,000 COVID-19 grants and just a few days left to get any more in. Some of the grants have already been issued to clubs. 

Past RI Vice Pres, Past Chair of the Trustees of The Rotary Foundation and our own Past District Governor and Past Chair of the Rotary International PolioPlus Committee, Dr Bob Scott told us about recent effort to eradicate polio (his presentation is shown as a file to the left of this page). He talked about 12 cases of the wild polio virus in Afghanistan and 49 in Pakistan this Rotary year as of May 26. He is concerned about the cvDPv, the circulating vaccine derived polio still affecting children in many countries.  He did say that the new vaccine has started to be administered again. With COVID-19, everything was put on hold world-wide, but National days of Immunization will be starting up again, in a few weeks. The Canadian Government has just committed to $47.5 million over the next 4 years.  He noted that only 9% of Rotarians have donated this year to polio fund. The gates Foundation is matching Rotary donations 2 to 1. But Rotary is short just over $14 million of the $50 million this year. That means that the Gated Foundation will match only what Rotary has put in. Rotarians all over the world are trying to make last minute donations to see of we can meet that $50 million number by June 30. We need your help.

We are going to hear about "Polio To Go" shortly. Basically, instead of lunch, can you donate $10 to the Polio Fund by June 30? That is our challenge.

Past District Governor Michael Bell, District 7070 Chair of the Rotary Foundation Committee, reminded us about Former District Foundation Chair, the late Bill Patchett had a dream and the short time we have left to help reach Bill's dream. Just once, he wanted to raise $1,000,000.00 USD for our Rotary Foundation in one Rotary year. He came close raising $806,000.00 USD one year but never realized his goal. This year in his memory we set a goal to raise $1,000,000.00 USD as a tribute to Bill. We call it “The Mil for Bill”.  And we are close. As of June 1, we have $904,000 donated. Michael also knows about additional funds coming in and thinks we need about $50,000 more by June 30, and hopes that we can do this if we all help. Rotarian Ian Lancaster donated $10,000 and challenged everyone to match that number by June 30. We are so close.