DG Rick Benson Vistis Club

District Governor Rick Benson (Westport Rotary Club) visited the North Branford Rotary Club on October 1, 2008.

Rick was introduced by AG Chip Lewis (Branford Rotary Club) and first announced the results of the interviews for the Group Study Exchange (GSE) Team Lead. Dawn Pearson of our club was selected from 3 very strong candidates. She will be leading a team of 4 young professionals on a month-long visit to Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. The team leaves on January 25, 2009 and returns on February 26, 2009. He also presented her with some travel information to the region.

Rick also spoke to us of the value of being a Rotarian - that it was a verb and a call to action. This year's theme is Make Dreams Real. There are 26000 children worldwide who die every day from preventable causes. We may not be able to save every one of them, but it is our moral duty to save those we can through providing clean water, food, education, vaccination, access to health and medicine, and above all, love.

He then picked the winner of the Fabulous Prize from the names of club members who donated food for the needy throughout the year. The lucky winner was Mukund who promptly donated the prize to this year's auction.

AG Phoebe Leask (Fairfield Rotary Club), who could not be present at the start of the new Rotary year, formally inducted Mukund into the Paul Harris Society.

Ambassadorial Scholar, Chloe Heung, also attended the meeting as did Dr. Bill James, an active Rotarian and the oldest World War II veteran living in our town.

For a photo essay, please click on the link below:

http://www.clubrunner.ca/Data/7980/3793/html/46707/DG%20Rick%20Visit%20Oct%201-08.pdf