District 3 Kin – Make a Difference 

November 15, 2009

Family of Kin

It has long been obvious to me that District 3 is unique within our organization; I may be slightly biased but I believe D3 Kin to be the most dynamic, the most diverse, the most passionate in the country.  (I know some of the other districts will take exception with that and that’s alright – I hope they are as proud of their districts as we are of ours.)  This unique character was most recently illustrated at our recent Fall Leadership Conference, hosted by the Swift Current Kinettes October 23-24, 2009.  What an AMAZING event!  We had 131 registrants representing 31 clubs.  Those numbers are double what we have had the past few years and I believe this is a very good indicator of the excitement and enthusiasm that is being generated in this district.  The meetings and educational sessions were well attended and when the agenda had to be reworked so that people could go watch the Rider game, everyone rolled with it and we made it work.  (See what I mean?  What other District does THAT?)

Several special mentions need to be made:

-         Thank you SO much to the Swift Current Kinettes and Kinsmen for the excellent FLC and Medieval Feast – WELL DONE, ALL!!!

-         Thank you to our presentors: the group from Toastmasters, Kozzy and Kathy Butt, Tammy Miller and Denise Loeppky and Doug Anthony.  I’ve heard lots of positive remarks regarding all the presentations.  Thank you to Gerry Boehm and to Tracy Wilson for attending and sharing information regarding the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Hal Rogers Endowment Fund respectively.

-         Thank you to the Sergeants at Arms, the Saskatoon Kinsmen club and to all who bought cookies and paid up – as a result of fines, auctions and general damn foolishness (Lloydminster Kinsmen…..) over $1200.00 was raised for Cystic Fibrosis. 

-         Thank you to the Watrous Kinettes for their bid to host District Convention in June 2010 and the Parkland and Mossbank clubs for their bid to host Fall Leadership Convention in Moose Jaw in the fall of 2010.  (Had my fingers crossed that we would get those bids so a special thank you for knocking two things off our To Do list.)

On to other business now:

If ACCURATE club rosters WITH contact information did NOT get in, please get that done ASAP.  Insurance forms and dues are due, please sign up and pay up.  Back to FLC for a moment, if you ever wonder what your dues buy you please consider the incredibly informative and fun event we just held.  That was heavily subsidized by the District which means your dues helped fund that event.  *I* think it was well worth it and hope all attendees agree.  Up to date insurance forms mean we could safely put Ean and Zipp in the stockade (where they both belonged anyway…. And no, Zipp, you don’t have H1N1). 

We are well in to the Kin year so I had another look at our Operational Plan recently.  Copies were available at FLC – if you picked one up, what do you think?  If you didn’t, email me and I will forward it to you.  Our main goals as an executive are communication, growth and retention.  I am very proud of the membership and of the executive team and I think we are doing an awesome job on those goals.  But here’s the thing – what I think is not as important as what YOU think.  So please, drop me or any member of the team an email or give us a call.  All the contact information is up on saskin.ca.

How do YOU think we’re doing?

I know *I* think we’re great.

My last piece of news is the most exciting.  We are looking at chartering TWO new clubs!!!  Broadview has approached us wanting to start a Kinsmen club and meetings with University of Regina students have started to start a Kin club there.  If you know anyone attending or living in the city (the club does not have to be limited to U of R students) that might be interested, please forward their names to me at the email address below.

In closing, I was updating my calendar this morning – I have lots of free weekends in December and would love to come out to your club event.  I am enjoying every minute spent travelling to clubs and meeting with Kin in smaller groups and look forward to doing MUCH more of that through my year.

So far I am attending the CF gala (Nov 13), a Life Membership (Nov 14), attending Moose Jaw (Nov 16) and Saskatoon Kinsmen installations (Nov 21), a Zone Social in Kindersley (Nov 28) and meeting with the North Battleford Kinettes (Nov 20).  See?  Lots of room in December to connect!

Thank you all so much for being Kin.

Yours in Kin

Corie

Governor, D3

(306) 642-5784 (h) 642-7089 (c)

corieruzickaolson@sasktel.net