Governor

Happy New Year! The First Lady and I hope all your holiday celebrations were very enjoyable.
Our time has been so enjoyable, doing our Governor's Visits, along with the various other events and fund raisers that we've attended. Everyone has been so welcoming and we have been treated royally. We had a successful and fun-filled time along with service at The New York Speaking event in Lake George. The following weekend at our Tri K weekend with our Key Club and Circle K was equally as successful.
Our membership is up more than 100 so far. This is very positive so just imagine if we grow by 50 members each month. We would be up 600 at the end of the year. We will be looking to start at least eight new clubs this year. I made that promise to our International President at my Governor’s training. We will look to our Past Gov. Eric Paul, assisted by Tricia Hook, along with Distinguished Past Gov. Joe Eppolito, who was recently appointed Northeast Membership Coordinator. They will be organizing efforts to build new clubs, but also to strengthen those many clubs that are under charter. Please look to help with this effort. I have said, "if we don't grow and gain new members, eventually we won't exist", so all of our hard work will be in vain.
I was able to make contact with the base commander at Fort Drum and we will be able to utilize the funds that were donated last year to our Kids to Kamp program. The children of our military will attend Kamp this summer. Along those lines, I thought what a good idea to also pay back to our first responders. How about children of fallen first responders? We will be accepting donations for these children of "fallen heroes".
Please make every effort to attend our mid-winter conference in Binghamton being held February 21-23. We will have many informative forums available, plus an expanded and extended forum presented by my team on my Governor's Project. Thank you to Maureen Neuringer for coordinating this whole project. For attendees who would like to have some fun, we will have a Jeopardy type of game event in the afternoon.
Also look to attend our 20th Anniversary Gala for our Pediatric Lyme Disease Foundation. This will take place on March 22, at the Floral Terrace on Long Island. If you cannot attend, please support this great foundation by putting an ad in the journal.
A new project I am starting is a Transportation Fund. This would help a Key Club or Circle K Club not sponsored by a Kiwanis Club attend their events. They must try to raise money on their own, first. We will ask clubs to contribute to this fund. But if your club does support an SLP, please continue to do as you have.
Lastly, please support all of our foundations. Beside our Pediatric Lyme Foundation, Pediatric Trauma Foundation and our Kamp Kiwanis Foundation, which supports the disaster relief efforts, are all wonderful foundations. They work extensively to support our own within our Great New York State District.

Column Posted on Web Site January 26, 2020