President's Message

Maintaining 100% Attendance

While On the Road.

By Drew Vactor

I travel. I mean I really travel. In 2002 we spent over 4 months away from home and in 2003 it is about the same. My wife, Kandie, and I work on cruise ships teaching computer classes to passengers. We teach up to 5 classes a day on sea days, but we get the port days off, so we usually go Scuba diving, except in Alaska.

We have recently taught classes on the Crystal Harmony, Crystal Symphony, Coral Princess and Celebrity Infinity. We usually go for 30 days at a time, but sometimes for as long as 6 weeks.

We are also Scuba Instructors. We teach academics and pool skills at home in Tucson, but then we often travel to San Carlos, Mexico to certify our students.

We also charter a live-aboard dive boat once a year in various exotic locations to dive with our students and friends, including fellow Rotarians. In between, of course, there is skiing (I am the webmaster for the International Skiing Fellowship of Rotarians, www.isfrski.org), visiting our daughter in San Diego and occasionally just running away from home.

After spending 26 years of 80 weeks running our Mobil Travel Guide 5 Star, AAA 5 Diamond award winning restaurant, The Tack Room in Tucson, and then all this travel, I have managed to keep perfect attendance in Rotary since I joined almost 18 years ago. The first question people often ask is “Why?” The second is often, “How?”

I joined Rotary because of the symbiotic relationship it offered. I could help others and becoming involved with others outside my industry helped me. It is a great concept and a rewarding affiliation. I determined during visits to the club, even before I joined, that it would be extremely important to maintain constant contact with Rotary members to give and get the most out of my membership. I also knew that once I missed a meeting, the second one would be easier to miss and the third even easier and pretty soon I would be an absentee member. I determined that the best way to remain involved and get the most out of my Rotary membership was to try to maintain 100% attendance. It has become an addiction, but in a good sense.

So, with all that travel, how have I managed to maintain 100% attendance for so many years. First, I made it a priority. My Rotary sponsor, one of the busiest people I know, inspired me. He has maintained perfect attendance for almost 50 years. I knew it could be done. Second, I take time preparing when I travel. I make up meetings before and after trips and I find out when meetings will be held on my travel route. I have been able to make up in such far away places as Jerusalem, the Great Barrier Reef (Cairns, Australia), Papeete Tahiti, Vancouver China Town, Calgary, Edinburgh and Dublin. I have made up on various islands in the Caribbean, including Tortola and Guadeloupe. I made up at Club #2000 in Ketchikan, Alaska and at ski areas including Snowmass, Colorado, Lake Tahoe, and Park City, Utah. In these locations, and many others, I have always found warm, caring, dedicated community members who readily welcomed us into their group. In Honolulu and Crested Butte, Colorado, busy Rotarians who knew I was on foot insisted on giving me a ride. In Hilo, Hawaii, and Mall of the Americas, Minnesota, they wanted to hear about the Southwestern desert.

Most cruise ships have “Service Club Meetings”. They are fun and extremely entertaining. It is always interesting to meet members of Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions and other service clubs from around the world. They can sometimes be some of the most rewarding of meetings. However, since they are not chartered clubs, they do not qualify for a Rotary makeup. Even with extremely careful planning, I sometimes find that each time we stop in a port it is on a Saturday or Sunday, or the local Rotary meeting is at night after we sail, or in the morning before we arrive. Believe it or not, there are actually a few ports that do not even have a Rotary club. Sometimes there is a noon meeting and I have to decide between making up a Rotary meeting or going diving or skiing. OK – what would you do?

Occasionally, I find that I have used up my entire two weeks and still have not found a Rotary club in a port we visit with a meeting on the day we are there – when I am not diving. With so many years of perfect attendance behind me, it becomes critical to find a club immediately. That is when I visit my new friends at Rotary eClub One, www.rotaryeclubone.org.

By joining them online and reading about the activities of Rotary International and various club projects, I learn more about Rotary and fellow Rotarians, and I also get credit for a makeup. My online sessions last from 20 minutes to 2 hours. Sometimes it is so interesting that I find time has just slipped away.

The average time spent should be about 30-40 minutes, or about the time it takes for the speaker at a “Terra” meeting. It takes about that long to really follow a thread. I often learn more about Rotary on Rotary eClub One’s web site than I can from any other source.

I have now made up at Rotary eClub One so many times that they asked me to be a Correspondent member. That means I can maintain my “Terra Club” membership while still participating on a membership level with Rotary eClub One. It is one of the only ways a Rotarian can actually be a member of two clubs at the same time. It does require some additional interactive time, but isn’t that what Rotary is all about?

In fact, one of the articles on the web site that you can read for a makeup is an interview of how I make up while at sea. You can read it at www.rotaryeclubone.org in the archives or go directly to:

http://www.rotary5450.org/eclub/scripts/program/ag.cgi?arc=26

As I write this, I have just looked at the calendar and realized that the last two meetings of the year for The Rotary Club of Tucson will be cancelled because they fall on holidays so attendance is automatic. That will take the pressure off. We will be at sea, again, and there are no Rotary Clubs on our Holiday season route. I may check in with Rotary eClub One anyway just because I enjoy reading the current information on their web site.

About 10% of our Terra Club maintains 100% attendance. Give it a try. It is an enjoyable challenge and a good habit to establish. The more you participate the more you will appreciate the incredible power of Rotary, the most remarkable service club in the universe.

To do BOTH use the Critique E-mail first, then return and click on the Make-Up Request Form

The content of programs appearing on the eClub One Make-Up website are the opinions of the authors and may or may not be shared by members of Rotary eClub One. These programs are presented by Rotary eClub One for use by site visitors, just as any program that might be presented at a Rotary meeting anywhere in the world.

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