John Farrow launches his second year as president highlighting our focus on youth, food security, the environment, and a new local approach to international work.

What are the possibilities for Rotary in Kingston and what is C-K Rotary's place in that?

We continue to lead locally in the areas of youth, food security, the environment, and internationally in many areas.

Our strongest service is with youth. We sponsor students in Rotary Adventures programs and the RYLA leadership camp. Our work with Pathways continues and is expanding into the Unnamed Youth Project, which has the potential to change many lives in a lasting way for generations to come.

Our focus on food security is reflected in our support for innovation and improvements to services at Martha's Table, hands-on help for Lionhearts’ student food box packing and delivery, providing meals for the “Something for Dads” parenting program at Kingston Community Health Centre (KCHC), and support for Pathways to Education's new Cultural Cooking program.

Our work under the theme of Protecting the Environment will expand with all the Seaway West clubs together. We have strong advocates in our club. We will work to establish an environmental working group for our region.

In our international work, we have been host for one project (Pathways Facilitator of Alumni Relations) and international partner on up to 10 projects at a time, and supporter of many more. We have a large network of supportive clubs. Now, we are planning a shift, reducing global grant involvement as international partner. Our new direction is to start working with people in Kingston who are part of diaspora groups around the world. We have connections to Sudan, Iran, Ukraine, Syria, and El Salvador. We will draw on these connections to develop international projects that are locally driven. In this way, we will create possibilities for new members, making us a more diverse club.

In our Regional and National work, we will continue our active participation in the Indigenous Peoples Partnerships Cluster and IPPC and our support for the Rotary-initiated HIP (Honouring Indigenous Peoples) with its youth focus.

Our website is being redesigned to provide the public with stories of our work that invite participation through membership and partnership. We are introducing sponsorship ads from organizations that endorse what we’re doing.

We’re changing to face the challenges of a changing world.

Editor’s note: We followed the president’s address with a lively discussion of possibilities for meeting the challenges we face by making our meetings and events more community-focused and inviting.