June 28, 2022 Changing of the Guard
Maureen O’Leary’s Incoming President Speech
A Look Ahead to this 2022-2023 Rotary year
It is my honor to be your leader for the upcoming Rotary year.
Most of you know me pretty well, but for anyone who does not, I got involved with the Thiensville-Mequon community because my law firm is here. I started working in Thiensville in 2008.
I joined the Thiensville-Mequon Rotary Club in 2017. When I joined, I didn’t yet understand the distinction between Rotary and a business networking club. Wow, have I learned a lot since then.
First, I have learned that Rotary is special because it is not just a local club, but part of an incredible international organization. Not many local clubs can sincerely boast that they are simultaneously improving the local community, and facilitating fellowship among true friends, and changing the world. I know we all know this, but it is worth reciting that Rotary has seven areas of focus that include both local and international components, and need to keep them all in mind.
Rotary members believe that we have a shared responsibility to take action on our world’s most persistent issues. With over 46,000 Rotary clubs around the world, through the combined efforts of our projects and fundraising, we all work together towards these seven areas of focus:
- Promote peace
- Fight disease
- Provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene
- Save mothers and children
- Support education
- Grow local economies
- Protect the environment
Our mission
We provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through our fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.
Vision statement
Together, we see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change — across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves. About Rotary | Rotary International
This is a powerful charge. I will do my part to lead our club this year as we continue to fulfill our mission.
I’m realistic of the fact that only so much can be done in given year, so I want to focus my attention on a few things specifically that will strengthen the infrastructure of the firm for not just one year but many more to come.
There are initially three goals I will focus on:
- First: I want to clearly assign all active members to at least one active committee. This can be done quickly.
- Second: I will help the club work together to identify our next big project(s). It is essential our club be very thoughtful about this, strong building blocks.
- Third: I want to focus on increasing our membership over the course of the year. Return to the strength pre-Covid attendance and build on that.
- If we can add some more strong members to our club, it should help at all turns – it will held add strong leaders to our ranks for future board directors and officer roles, it can help strengthen each committee that is in need of volunteers, it can help us become more visible in the community, and it can help us better achieve all of our goals.
- I believe that any significant business located in Mequon or Thiensville would want to send a representative member to our club. Perhaps they just need an invitation.
With those goals in mind, I have some specific plans to kick off working towards these goals.
- First, on our first Rotary lunch meeting of the summer, July 12, we are going to have a special meeting without an outside speaker so we can take time to work on the first two goals. We will sort everyone out on committees and then take some time to talk about what we want our next big project(s) to be, so come prepared for productive working discussion.
- Second, our Tuesday club meeting on July 26, 2022 will be a casual celebration of our local club’s 85th anniversary. In honor of our anniversary, we are preparing a special program that would be a great meeting at the park to bring potential new members to expose them to the club. I will challenge all of you to bring a potential member as a guest to that meeting, so begin thinking about who might be a good guest to invite.