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Connie and I continue our club visits which only happen to encompass some of Kentucky's most beautiful regions. We are having a great time meeting new friends and getting a glimpse of the great things that are happening because of the many dedicated Rotary members in our District. We have visited 21 clubs in July and August. The clubs are as diverse in size and personality as the regions of Kentucky in which they are located. They are Campbell County, Covington, Falmouth and Maysville in Northern Kentucky; London, Somerset, Somerset-Pulaski, and Corbin in South Central Kentucky; Ashland, Russell, Grayson, Fleming County and Louisa in North Eastern Kentucky; in the Central Bluegrass Region, Georgetown, Nicholasville, Lexington Sunrise, Versailles-Woodford and Lexington; and in the Eastern Kentucky Mountain Region West Liberty, Whitesburg and Hazard. I had visited all of these areas in my previous work with Sen. Bunning, but Rotary has given Connie and I a chance to visit them together. We will be forever grateful to the District for this opportunity that we are sharing.
We will be traveling to Kansas City for the Zone Institute and training in September. Our Zone 30 is combined with Zone 31 and we are known as The "Heart of America" Zones. In Zones 30/31 there are 26 Districts in 13 States--Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Connie and I have become good friends with the 26 District Governors and their spouses from these states. We look forward to meeting with them and our International Zone Director Larry Lunsford from Missouri. There will also be continued training there for District Governors, District Governor Elects and District Governor Spouses.
At the Zone Institute I will have the opportunity to present to International Polio Plus Chairman and Rotary International President Nominee, John Germ 2016-2017, Chattanooga Tennessee, checks that have been given to me from the following clubs: Lexington $10,000, Florence $6,500, Somerset- Pulaski $2,500 and Kenton County $1,600 for a total of $20,600.00 for polio. Add this to the $12,050 from the District Designated Fund, $1,000 from Maysville and approximately $600 that has been given since July by individuals, we are at $34,250.00 donated to polio in the first couple of months of this Rotary year! I have set a goal of $60,000 to be given to polio by the District this year, and I am very excited about the start that we have. I look forward to you absolutely crushing this polio goal by June 30, 2015!
Connie and I want to say thank you again for the warm welcome and support that we have received across the District. Remember, we are so very close. We owe it to the children of the world to complete our polio mission.
Best Wishes,
John Salyers,
District Governor, 2014-2015
D6740, Florence Rotary Club
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PAKISTAN
Below is a great article on the hard work that is being done in Pakistan on Polio Eradication. This article appeared in Time Magazine online issue on July 29, 2014. I have met Aziz Memon, Rotary International Polio Plus Committee Chair for Pakistan. He is very direct about the efforts in Pakistan and is certain, as difficult of an area as it is, we will win the war against Polio in his country. I believe him and encourage you to remember Aziz and the eradication team of Pakistan in your thoughts and prayers.
John Salyers,
District Governor, D6740
The Battle to Eradicate Polio in Pakistan
Political unrest in Pakistan has been a gift to the poliovirus, with 99 cases reported there so far this year. But Rotary International, which has already vaccinated 2 billion children in 122 countries, is hitting back hard.
by Taboola
Epidemiology can be all about geography-and that's especially true when it comes to polio. If you live in the U.S., where polio was eradicated in 1979, the specter of the disease has faded almost entirely, though pockets of infections can occur among the unvaccinated. In Pakistan, however, things are moving in precisely the opposite direction, and have been for a while now.
One of only three countries in the world where polio remains endemic (the other two are Nigeria and Afghanistan), Pakistan had been close to joining the world's polio-free nations, with only 58 infections in 2012. But thanks to bans on vaccinating-and deadly attacks on polio fieldworkers-by the Pakistani Taliban, the caseload rose to 93 in 2013. In 2014, the total reached 99 by July 18-a figure all the more alarming compared to this point last year, when there had been just 21 cases. "It's a scary number," says Aziz Memon, Pakistani chairman of Rotary International's polio eradication campaign. "Children in North Waziristan have been trapped for three and a half years without a drop of polio vaccine, and that's what's causing this."
The folks at Rotary know what they're talking about. Since launching their polio eradication effort in 1985, they have been responsible for the vaccination of 2 billion children in 122 countries. Along with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, The Gates Foundation and others, they have helped slash the global infection rate from 350,000 cases per year in 1988 to 416 in 2013.
That's indisputably good news, but polio is an exceedingly sneaky virus, with 200 symptom-free carriers for every one case of the disease. That fact, combined with the anti-vaccine forces in Pakistan, not to mention the porous borders cause by war and unrest in the overall region, has caused the disease to leak out from the three endemic countries, with stray cases turning up in Equatorial Guinea, Iraq, Cameroon, Syria, Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. In a handful of other countries, the virus has been detected in sewage, but it has not led to any cases of the disease-yet.
It's Pakistan though that's considered ground zero, and Rotary has announced that it's now deploying some very simple weapons in what has always been a village-to-village, door-to-door battle. To improve surveillance and tracking-a maddeningly difficult job in a country in which so many people live off the communications grid-Rotary has distributed hundreds of cell phones to midwives who circulate through communities, canvassing residents to find out who has received the vaccine and who has been overlooked. Information on the unvaccinated kids-the "missing children" in the fieldworkers argot-is entered into the phones and uploaded to a central spreadsheet, allowing later vaccinators to target their efforts more precisely.
"The midwives also track pregnant mothers," says Memon. "And when their children are born they can continue to maintain complete health records, not just for polio but for other vaccines and basic health care as well."
Rotary has also worked with The Coca-Cola Company to build what's known as a reverse osmosis water plant-essentially a sophisticated filtration facility-in the town of Malin, within the city of Karachi. Polio is a disease spread almost entirely by human waste, and once it leeches into the water system it can spread nearly anywhere. The Malir plant, which was constructed near a school to give polio-age kids the first access to the newly filtered water, is a relatively modest one, with just 20,000 gal. (76,000 liters) of clean water on hand at any one moment, and cost only $40,000 to build. But as a pilot project it represents a very good start. "We can't build a massive plant like the government can," says Memon. "This is a small plant for a small community."
One thing, paradoxically, that's working in the vaccinators' favor is the increased number of displaced people in Pakistan. A recent push by the Pakistani military to flush the Taliban from its safe havens has broken the vaccination blockade, and already 350,000 children have received at least one dose of the polio vaccine. But 1.5 million refugees are scattered around the country. Rotary has dispatched field workers to refugee camps and transit points to identify the children and few adults who need the polio vaccine and administer it on the spot.
"The government did not have any idea about what the numbers of displaced people would be," says Memon. In the refugee camps, he adds, there are at least 40,000 pregnant women, whose babies will have to be vaccinated shortly after birth.
The diabolical thing about polio-and indeed any disease science hopes to eradicate-is that even one case is too many. As long as any wild poliovirus is out there, everyone needs to be protected. It is only when the last scrap of virus has been found and snuffed, that the protective push can stop. That has happened once before in medical history-with smallpox. In the case of polio, it's tantalizingly close to happening again.
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In this newsletter we have included a copy of Rotary Direct, Rotary's recurring giving form, you can use this form for contributions to The Rotary Foundation (TRF). If you fill out this form and send it to the TRF they will deduct monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually an amount of your choosing. They will deduct from a debit or credit card. The donation must be at least $10.00. If you deduct $10.00 a month you will reach Foundation Sustaining Member status every year. If you deduct $85.00 a month you will become a Paul Harris Society member each year. Connie and I have had automatic deductions to the Foundation every month since November 22, 2005 and have never had a problem. They have never taken less or more than I authorized! I encourage you to consider this option for Foundation giving, it is reliable, easy, and secure!
Click Here to View The Rotary Direct Form
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Council on Legislation
How to Propose Legislation
Every three years Rotary International's Council on Legislation meets to debate and vote on legislation submitted by clubs, districts, the RI Board, and the general council or conference of RIBI. The Council has the authority to amend RI's constitutional documents, as well as adopt resolutions. The Council gives us a voice in how our organization is governed. Every district sends one representative to the Council, and every club and district may propose legislation. If your club or district is considering proposing legislation for the Council, please follow these guidelines:
- All proposed legislation should be submitted on the 2016 Council Legislation online form. As part of the form, a Word version of the constitutional document with the proposed changes will need to be uploaded. The Word documents can be found on the governance documents page of the Rotary website.
- Clubs, districts, the RI Board, and the general council or conference of RIBI may propose legislation. However, legislation proposed by a club must first be endorsed by the clubs of the district in order to be presented to the Council.
- Legislation from clubs and districts for the 2016 Council must be received by Rotary International on or before 31 December 2014. There are no exceptions to this deadline. Legislation received after the deadline will not be considered.
- The submission must include the following items to be complete:
1) Name of the proposer
2) Confirmation from the district governor that legislation was proposed or endorsed by the district
3) The proposer's statement of purpose and effect
4) Word document with the proposed changes
- For a club to propose legislation:
1) The club's board of directors must first submit proposed legislation to the club members
for adoption at a regular club meeting.
2) If adopted, the proposal must then be forwarded to the district with a letter signed by the club president and secretary certifying that it has been adopted by the club.
3) The proposal must be endorsed by the club's district at a district conference, at a district
resolutions meeting, or through a ballot-by-mail; otherwise it will not be considered by the Council.
4) Once endorsed, submit the proposal to Rotary through the online form and have the district
governor confirm the district's endorsement by 31 December 2014.
The RI Bylaws encourage districts to submit no more than five items of proposed legislation. Districts should submit a separate 2016 Council on Legislation online form for each.
When submitting legislation to RI, the proposer must provide a statement of purpose and effect, 300 words or less, in order for the proposal to be considered duly proposed. If a statement is not provided, it will not be considered duly proposed and will not be transmitted to the Council for consideration. This statement should identify the issue or problem that the proposed legislation seeks to address and explain how the proposal addresses or resolves the problem or issue.
There are two types of legislation:
1) Proposed enactments seek to change RI's constitutional documents (the RI Constitution, RI Bylaws, and the Standard Rotary Club Constitution),
2) Proposed resolutions seek actions by the Council
Proposed legislation will be deemed defective if
1) it is subject to two or more inconsistent meanings;
2) it fails to amend all affected parts of the constitutional documents;
3) its adoption would violate governing law;
4) it is in the form of a resolution but would require an action, or express an opinion that is in
conflict with the letter or spirit of the constitutional documents;
5) it would amend the Standard Rotary Club Constitution in a way that would conflict with the
RI Bylaws or the RI Constitution or it would amend the RI Bylaws in a way that would conflict with the RI Constitution; or
6) it would be impossible to administer or enforce.
Additional information can be found in the following locations:
* Article 10 of the RI Constitution
* Articles 7 and 8 of the RI Bylaws
* Article 59 of the RI Code of Policies
* Chapter 17 of the 2013 Manual of Procedure
If you have questions about RI's legislative process, please email me at Rotarytom6740@comcast.net.
Tom Ashford, PDG
District 6740 2007-08
Council on Legislation Delegate
2016
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Boone County Interact Club
This past month has been a busy one for the Interact Club of Boone County.  Our Interactors volunteered twice at Lovesome Equine Therapy playing cows so Lovesome's disabled clients could develop more hand-eye coordination by rounding up us, the Interact "cows". We wore white tee shirts with black spots and head bands with horns. It was great to see the smiles on these childrens' faces.
We also worked twice at Master Provisions, a food distribution warehouse which supplies food to local soup kitchens as well as other agencies who provide food to persons with food insecurities. It is a fast-paced environment where we organized incoming food donations before the agencies come in to "shop".
At the Mary Rose Mission we served meals to 141 guests, all homeless or close to homeless. There were young families as well as senior citizens. All guests are treated to a hot meal and seconds if they desire. This "soup kitchen" is only open four nights a week. For some of the guests of Mary Rose Mission, these are the only nights that they eat. Sad. How can you stay healthy if you don't have good food?  And, the final activity in July was a BBQ fundraiser. Jeff Wyler Honda proudly supports The Interact Club of Boone County. As part of their "giving back to the community" program, they provide the cooking equipment, the paper supplies, the hotdogs, the condiments and the bottles of water while we supplied the person or persons to cook the hotdogs as well as the donated bake goods. A good time was had by all. And, we raised some money too!
For those of you who read last month's message from our club, here is a link to our Dominican service trip documentary:
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Campbell County Rotary Club
Campbell County Rotary has been active in community projects. It had a table at the Campbell County School's ReadiFest and handed out pencils to each student. The club then set up water stations for the runners in the 5K and 10K runs to raise money for Lodge 10 FOP. This money supports the organization's children's Christmas fund to buy gifts. Rotary set up a purse sale during Newport's Ride on Monmouth, a classic car show with profits divided between the Rotary and Newport High and Middle School PTOs.. Campbell County Rotary has moved its meeting site to the Pepper Pod Restaurant, 703 Monmouth St., Newport, at 12:30. Arnd Rehfuss, president of the Campbell County, club received his diploma for completing the 3rd class of the Rotary Leadership Institute.
Campbell County Rotary participated in the Campbell County school's ReadiFest. Students from all elementaries and the middle school converged on the middle school to receive packets from each of their schools and then proceeded around the school gym where businesses, organizations, etc., were passing out pens, pencils ,rulers, testing eyes, and giving haircuts. Rotary, with the cooperation from Home DePot and Heritage Bank distributed approximately 600 pencils.
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Carlisle Rotary Club
The following are a few of the things that the Carlisle Club is up to:
On September 2, Coralie Victoria Von Sandrot, an exchange student from Germany, will be arriving. Coco (as she likes to be called) will be Carlisle's 15th Rotary Youth Exchange student. In times past we have welcomed students, form Thailand, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Taiwan, Japan, France, Mexico, and others.
We have started an Interact Club at Nicholas County High School.
We will soon distribute free dictionaries to all 5th graders in Nicholas County, to include, Nicholas County Elementary, New Beginnings School, and the Amish school.
On Saturday, September 27, we will be holding, on the Nicholas County Courthouse lawn, our annual Saturday in Carlisle celebration. This is a free family fun day with all kinds of family activities planned to include cake walks, nearly 100 food and craft vendors, 7 hours of a variety of music, corn hole tournament, wiener dog race and dog show, bicycle decorating, petting zoo, kids tractor pull, vintage car and tractor show, and much more.
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FLORENCE - John Salyers has been inducted into the Florence Rotary Club Heritage Hall of Fame.
Salyers is the 15th person added to the honor roll since Florence Rotary was founded in 1945. Since leading the club as president in 2009-10, he has worked three years as an assistant governor for District 6740, which includes 45 clubs in the eastern half of Kentucky.
He will serve as District Governor for the 2014-15 Rotary year.
"John Salyers is the living epitome of the Rotary motto, "Service Above Self,"" said Gary Griesser, who led the induction ceremony on Monday, June 9. "John was turned on by Rotary when he joined the club nine years ago and he still is turned on by Rotary.
"His greatest role with Rotary has been the (worldwide) project to eradicate polio. He has put vaccine on the tongues of children in Africa, and he has worked with international officials and people like Bill Gates" to accomplish that goal.
Salyers was born in Independence and grew up in Grant County. He joined the U.S. Army in 1967 and served as a combat engineer during the Tet Offensive. After leaving the army, he joined the Erlanger Police Department, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant during 16 years on the force.
In 1986 Salyers directed Jim Bunning's successful campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served as Bunning's field representative during his 12 years as U.S. representative for Kentucky's 4th Congressional District and Bunning's two terms as one of Kentucky's two U.S. senators. Salyers retired from his congressional staff position in December 2011.
"He is one of the most kind and caring men I know," said Debbie McKinney, who served as Sen. Bunning's state director and deputy chief of staff. "He was into service above self before he ever came to Rotary. So many times I saw him spend of lot of his own time helping someone with Social Security or some other kind of problem."
Salyers currently serves on the Polio Eradication Advocacy Task Force for the United States as well as District 6740 Polio Chairman. Since 1979 Rotary has led a worldwide effort that has reduced polio cases by 99 percent around the globe. Salyers recently returned from the Rotary International Convention in Sydney, Australia.
"Sydney. ...That's where you could see how big Rotary is and how much influence it can have," Salyers said. He said one of the goals of his tenure as district governor will be to help wipe out the last vestiges of polio.
"I can't imagine the level of "turn-on" he is going to bring to the district," noted Griesser.
Salyers and his wife, Connie, live in Erlanger. They have two daughters and five grandchildren.
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 FLORENCE - A group of Northern Kentucky teenagers found inspiration for helping needy youngsters in the community during a project 1,700 miles away from home. The Interact Club of Northern Kentucky spent five days in the Dominican Republic volunteering at an orphanage, painting houses and distributing clothing to the needy. "It inspired me to think about how we could support pre-school children back home," Evan Maines noted in a video documentary of the experience.
The group presented the documentary to the Florence Rotary Club on Monday, July 14. Florence Rotary sponsors the Interact club, an organization affiliated with Rotary International for young people 12-18. Interact clubs typically carry out two service projects a years: a community-based activity and a project to promote international understanding. Eighteen students and eight adults from Northern Kentucky made the Interact trip to the Dominican Republic, an island nation in the Caribbean. The group operated out of Highlands Terra Alta, one of more than a dozen camps around the world developed by The Rawlings Foundation Ministry. The foundation, which is headquartered in Florence, also provided support for the group and Steve and Melody Rawlings joined the trip to Santo Domingo. Terra Alta also is the San Francisco Giants training camp. The group took 22 duffel bags of pre-school supplies and clothing collected by Florence Rotary to distribute during the visit. On the first day, the Interact students served snacks and candies to children from a pre-school orphanage. "We wanted the students to learn they can make a difference in these children's lives, one act a time," Rahn said. "We can make a difference by doing something for others." The students also served meals to baseball campers, painted two houses, donated food to the orphanage and distributed clothing to staff members. They also got a chance to tour Santo Domingo and spend an afternoon at the beach. The international project was particularly rewarding for Billie Santos, a vice president at Bank of Kentucky who served as Florence Rotary president last year. A native of the Dominican Republic, he took his daughter on the trip to show her his homeland. "It was really encouraging to me to see messages from kids (when we got home) who said they wanted to volunteer in their church or community," he said.
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The notice of the Rotary Club of Kenton County's siren dedication on September 11 was featured in the Kentucky Enquirer today.
Click Here to Read the Article
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The Maysville Rotary Club is sponsoring their second 2 Bridge Run on September 27, starting time 8:30 a.m. The run consists of a 12 K run which begins in downtown Maysville, running west to the William Harsha Bridge, across into Ohio and east through Aberdeen, O then crossing the Simon Kenton Bridge into downtown Maysville to the finish line. A 5K run or 5K walk is also available. These start in Aberdeen, crossing the Simon Kenton Bridge to the stopping point.
The club will be using the proceeds to fulfill their community and Rotary International projects. Registration forms are available at www.maysvillerotary.com. For any questions, please call Tom Keenan at 606-375-6364.
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