Pride is the feeling that comes to mind when people ask me about my role this year as President. To be clear, it’s the feeling of belonging to a group of worthwhile, productive, and fun individuals that do things to make our community (and the world) a better place. That’s odd to me because I thought I would be thinking first of the workload and of the time pressures of the position. It seems that when good things get accomplished the “work” part of the equation seems to evaporate. Oh yeah, did I mention I’m having fun as well?
When I stop and actually read the list of all the things that our club gets done in a year it is frankly dizzying. Through the efforts of our membership we have accomplished some pretty amazing things. From the “happy dollars” collected weekly for the funding of the High School Senior scholarships to the yearly cleanup of an often-unattended cemetery. We have also helped those lives that were devastated by natural disasters as well as provided holiday gifts and cheer for families in need of attention and care. Other activities include; Tailgate picnic at Princeton to support the Rescue Mission, road cleanup activities, dictionaries to 3rd graders, care packages sent to Iraq to support our troops, delivering a course to High School students on how to develop and build a business, and the list goes on & on. Our major fundraising event is Mercer Day, which takes place on May 18th, 2008.
I think what attracted me to Rotary is the fact that it is the only service organization that has an international component (www.rotary.org). When we work with some of the 30,000 other clubs from around the world you start to really see the global impact of what can be achieved.
I am proud to be the President of such a vibrant organization and I hope you will join us as a visitor to one of our weekly meetings where anyone of our members will be happy to tell you about Rotary International and more specifically about our club.

All the Best,
Chip Jerry
President