Today's meeting included a visit from two of three MVHS students we sponsored for Rotary's Camp Enterprise earlier this month. This long-standing weekend event, a signature project of the Rotary Club of Edina, consistently gets high marks from students, and these young women were no exception. They spoke about how little they knew about it before attending and wondered what they had gotten themselves into, but then went on to speak in glowing terms of all they learned about leadership, business and themselves in the process.
District Governor Dayle Quigley also visited today and spoke about her own Rotary journey as well as what our District has planned for the remainder of this Rotary year. Dayle first learned of Rotary when she and her husband were looking for an international exchange program for their then high-school aged daughter. They ended up choosing Rotary because of the structure and safety nets it provides, as well as the history of great host parents. This ended up being a fantastic experience for their daughter and family and it launched Dayle into her Rotary journey. Dayle is an Emergency Room Physician, currently working in Little Falls, MN. After medical school, her first work as a physician was with the U.S. Military, where she spend 4 years stationed in Japan. After the military, her family moved to Hayward, WI where she joined Rotary and served as President after only two years with the club. After 24 years, she and her family moved to St. Paul and she joined that club. She quickly moved through a number of District Level committees and now serves as our DG. Dayle is an energetic optimist and her comments today invigorated us all to remembering why we joined Rotary and why we stay. Her "elevator speech" when asked what Rotary is, is the following: "We are 1.4 million dreamers that do!"