Happy February. What a roller coaster of weather we are having. Luckily Rotary is an all-season sport. I love hearing about all that you are doing in our communities. Thank you for your efforts!

 

Leader transitions. Preparing for the upcoming season of leader transitions in Rotary has begun. This past week we held our Pre-Presidents-Elect Training Seminar (PETS) session. We had most of our incoming club presidents join us to hear about the upcoming Rotary year. This will help our presidents-elect begin planning for the new Rotary year. I was pleased to see so many wonderful Rotary leaders and hear their excitement. They will need all our support, so talk with your incoming president to see where you may help. Every club has need for Rotarians to roll up their sleeves in service and raise their right hands as leaders. Next step for the presidents-elect will be to attend the PETS in King of Prussia next week. DGE Paul has asked them to come prepared with some homework to discuss goals and opportunities for service. I look forward to hearing all that our clubs are planning to accomplish.

 

Cyber security. Recently some Rotarians received an email purporting to be from me telling them I needed them to reply to the email. The email came from the address rotarydistrictss@gmail.com. The is not an address I use or as far as I can tell is any Rotary related address. Fortunately, several of the receivers contacted me to inquire. I have changed passwords that hopefully stop the use of email contacts in my system. This incident does remind me that we all must be vigilant in our personal cyber security. Each week my spam folder is filled with 50 or more emails and now some of my fellow Rotarians got spam pretending to be me. Regularly changing account passwords is a good practice. Using password protecting software and using strong passwords helps too. Being suspicious of emails that don’t seem right is a good defense. This goes for our Rotary club websites and emails too. Whoever manages those accounts should be watching and acting. We’ll never completely prevent nefarious use of emails, but we can minimize the occurrence and effects.

 

District Learning Assembly March 23d. Registration is open for the District Learning Assembly (DLA) at Central Penn College. The in-person sessions will occur in the morning. Each participant can take up to three classes out of 15 offered. The focus is on topics of interest to Rotarians and of help to our clubs. The small registration fee covers a breakfast and the rental of the facility. We’ll finish by lunch time, so you have the remainder of the day available. We have not had a district learning assembly in 4 years. I’m excited to be able to conduct an in-person learning event! Won’t you please join us and learn while meeting your fellow Rotarians and then take the information back to your club as we grow Rotary in South Central PA.

 

I’ll see you around the district.

 

DG Fred.