The One And Only Rotary Convention

 I think everyone knows I am a part of a virtual, cause-based Rotary Club, the Club to End Human Trafficking. We are young, ambitious, way too white, and in need of getting better diversity of nations around the world. 

Each year Rotary International holds an annual convention. Prior to Covid these would attract up to 40 thousand Rotarians from around the world. But in 2020 and 2021 they had to be virtual. However, the convention scheduled this year in Houston, Texas, was going to come off in-person. Sadly because of the U.S. Government's breakdown in ability to process visas due to the prior administration and Covid disruptions, many who wanted to come couldn't. There were only 10 thousand in attendance. Including your truly.

You would ask,"de-I, you are notorious for not liking anything with crowds of people. Why the hell were you there?" A very valid question.

It started last February when my club president suggested this would be a great opportunity for members of our far flung, virtual club to actually meet each other face-to-face. I decided that was true so committed to go. Then over the next three months everyone else from the club backed out. I seriously thought of backing out too. BUT, there was this opportunity to do international recruitment that would never come again. As our Membership Chair, I felt a responsibility. There will not be another Convention in Northa America until 2025. Plus I thought it would be a good chance to promote Theodora as well. So I went.

I was helping man a booth of a related organization (The Rotary Group to End Slavery) which we are associated with. This gave me the venue with which to network. And I did. I was at the convention for two days solid, 10 hours each day, talking things up. I got a load of names. And was totally exhausted.Many in my circle (family, my Theodora participants) tell me I work too hard. Mostly they are not correct. I am on my butt making video calls. I am sorry, this is not hard work. Being on your feet, selling, non-stop for 10 hours a day is hard work. I will go on record as this was my first and last such venture.

And as a reward for my efforts...I came down with Covid! Thankfully have not been too bad (Thank you Pfizer Covid anti-viral drugs!). So I am writing this from my quarantine quarters in the Tower. 

On a more positive note, the high point of the convention was a social event, a 'drink-up' hosted by a Rotarian I know from Ghana. Yaw is our landlord. I didn't even know he was a Rotarian until just a few months ago. He invites me to this event. I have no idea what to expect other than he tells me important Ghanaian Rotarians will be there. Turns out to be a big ole BBQ with all kinds of Rotarian bigwigs. Yaw is promoting the hell out of Theodora. And I am (literally) the only white person in the room. It is very cool.

Pumped

 It is a strange feeling at this late stage in life to feel so pumped, excited, jacked, you choose the term, about a venture. However, the shift described in my last post in the direction of Theodora and our decision to seek serious investment to grow it has caused my state of mind to shift as well.  

It has brought back a lot of the emotions from my very early days in investment banking when a good part of the work enjoyment was the thrill of the chase and the excitement of working with big numbers (of money). Only this time, it is not for someone else, it is for me...well not exactly but for my concept that will benefit the (hopefully) large number of women. I don't know if this is going to work but it won't be for lack of trying. I talk to a lot of people who I was approaching a year ago when we were just starting. They can't believe the progress our little group of test subjects has made in such a short time period. That gets me pumped too. 

Then there is the new Rotary Club I moved to, The Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking. Don't remember if I've talked about this before. But, it is a virtual and cause based club (an innovation in the Rotary world) with members from 11 states and 6 countries (including two of my participants in Ghana!). It has a very ambitious strategic plan and a lot of very capable motivated people. And I am getting in on the ground floor. That's exciting too.

Who'd have thunk this would be happening in my mid-70's. Truly a statement of not retiring but transitioning one's life.

Swedish Invasion

This morning we took two visitors from Sweden to the airport. This was the culmination of our participation in a Rotary Friendship Exchange. These exchanges take place between Rotary Districts. One district asks another if they can host a group. The hosting district then takes responsibility for arranging all the agenda, housing, transportation, and activities for the visiting group.

Since one of our goals in joining Rotary is to create opportunities for us to enhance our ability to connect when we travel, this seemed like a good step in that direction. Or it seemed so when we first agreed to participate in the Fall. Then as we got involved in the organizational aspect of how this would all take place, we began to have second thoughts. Despite the fact that Rotary does tons of these and has over many, many, many years, it seemed to us as if there was a somewhat haphazard nature to the planning. We kind of expected that leadership would just tell us what to do  when what happened was the group (many of whom where new to this) were asked to figure out what we should be doing. It seemed weird to us.

Without going to much more into that, we kept in the project and we picked up our guests, a couple  M (male) and M (female) on Tuesday evening. We almost immediately hit it off with them. There were aspects of life experience that we immediately bonded with. Over the next three days we took them to all the activities the group had agreed upon. Each night we would sit in the living room with after dinner drinks and get into a wide range of conversations.

The female M had a terrible cold and was going down hill on the first day. Wife researched what urgent care could take a foreign visitor quickly and I got her there and then to the pharmacy. We missed one program but got her back on track. The Swedish leader was super appreciative. It didn't seem like such a big deal to us. I don't know what host would not do this for their guest.

On Thursday the group was eating at El Pinto, a noted New Mexican restaurant. I used the occasion to take our couple plus one other and their host (who jumped in with way more local history knowledge than I have) to do a bit of NM history and culinary background. Our guests really seemed to appreciate that.

Yesterday we had our guests to ourselves as all the hosts were to take their visitors to Santa Fe. The weather improved and we had a nice day at the Plaza and Canyon Road before we drove down the Turquoise Trail to Madrid and back home. There was a big celebratory dinner at one of the hosts house (we gather this is very traditional for these things) and stayed up with our guests until Midnight drinking way too much.

In the end we had made some wonderful new friends and have a plan to be visiting Scandinavia hopefully next year just as we hoped.