There will be an election of Directors for Rockford Rotary at our June 5th meeting. We will be electing 3 members to serve a 2-year term as Director starting July 1, 2025. The following members, in alphabetical order have announced their intention to run for this election: Tom Huber, Brian Martin, and Suzanne Shelain. Those three will be on the ballot unless more candidates come forward. There will also be a chance to nominate more candidates at the meeting.
In order for the election to be held, a quorum of 1/5 of the active members must be present to vote. This means that we need 19 members to show up on June 5th and vote. Our by-laws say that we must vote by ballot so there cannot be a simple voice vote. We encourage our members to show up and vote for these directors who will be leading the club for the next two years.
Dr. Patricia Lynott joined Rockford University in December 2022 serving as interim President until becoming the 19th President of Rockford University on March 1, 2024. Lynott’s almost forty years in higher education includes being a tenured, Associate Professor of Speech, serving as Dean of Graduate and Continuing Education at Elmhurst University, and becoming the founding director of Elmhurst Partners, the university’s corporate training division.
Dr. Lynott spent fifteen years at Southern New Hampshire University where she played a critical leadership role in transitioning a small regional business college into a national, multi-faceted university. During her tenure at SNHU, Lynott served as vice president of academic affairs, university provost, and president of SNHU’s University College.
Dr. Lynott’s community involvement is extensive. She was a founding member of Manchester Proud, a citizen’s coalition dedicated to uniting the City of Manchester behind an aspirational vision for the city’s public schools. She served on the steering committee of New Hampshire Scholars, a federally funded, community-based program that encourages students to enroll in a rigorous Core Course of Study in high school. She was also a member of the New Hampshire Advisory Committee of the US Global Leadership Coalition—a network of businesses and NGOs, national security and foreign policy experts, business, faith-based, academic and community leaders who support elevating diplomacy and development alongside defense in order to build a better, safer world.
Dr. Lynott has served on the board of directors of numerous non-profit organizations such as the Fulbright Association; Alpha Sigma Lambda National Honor Society; the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce; the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire; America’s Credit Union Museum; and the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester. She is currently President of the Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Club of North Central Illinois.
After graduating magna cum laude from Trinity College, Dr. Lynott completed a master’s degree in communication studies from Northern Illinois University. She completed her doctorate at Loyola University Chicago and has a certificate from the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
Dr. Lygott will bring us up to date on what is happening at Rockford University and what her plans are for the future. This will be an interesting and informative program and one that you will want to bring a guest or prospective member to join us in person at Memorial Hall or via Zoom. President Mike will introduce our presenter and act as Rotary host.
Our May 29th meeting will be a road trip to the new Equine Center at Lockwood Park at 5201 Safford Road. The meeting will begin at 12:00 AM. We will have lunch, a brief business meeting, and a program on "Help and Healing with Horses". Following the program, we will be able to tour the indoor equine facility. For those who want to carpool, meet at Memorial Hall at 11:30 AM and then go to the Equine Center.
Our presenter will be Kayla Tilly who is the operations and program manager at Lockwood Park. She has a bachelor's degree in nursing with a focus in mental health and emergency medicine and am a veteran of the United States Army. Kayla took my first horseback riding lesson at Lockwood Park when she was around 8 years old and continued to ride and train recreationally throughout my childhood and into adulthood. She has taught therapeutic riding lessons to veterans and individuals with physical disabilities and has always advocated for the therapeutic nature and profound impact horses can have on people. In my spare time she also enjoys training and showing my 5-year-old horse Nellie, gardening, hiking, fishing, and enjoying the outdoors.
This will be an interesting and informative program about this new facility of the Rockford Park District. We would encourage members to bring a guest or prospective member to join us at Lockwood Park. Mary Ann Norwood will introduce our presenter and act as Rotary Host.
On May 15th, nine members of our club assembled at the Rockford Family Peace Center for our annual planting of flowers in the flower beds in front of the center. Thank you, Mike, Eric, Paul, Suzanne, Mary Ann, Mary, Becky, Pete and Tom for your effort to make the Peace Center a bit more beautiful. We have heard from the Peace Center that they get a lot of compliments on the flower beds.
The Rock River Valley Food Pantry is having a "Peanut Butter Rally" from now until the end of May with the goal of collecting 20,000 jars of peanut butter to help families throughout the summer.
Rockford Rotary will have a barrel at the Main Street entrance to collect jars of peanut butter. If you forget to bring peanut butter, you can scan the code above and make a monetary donation.
Each week we will be publishing a message from the Rotary International Foundation. This week's message is:
WHAT IS RAISE FOR ROTARY?
Raise for Rotary is The Rotary Foundation’s peer-to-peer fundraising platform.
Members, donors, and participants use it to create fundraisers for birthdays, athletic challenges, and events like World Polio Day. You can quickly post fundraisers and updates on social media to raise awareness about your favorite Rotary cause.
The platform is available worldwide in English and accepts U.S., Canadian, and Australian dollars, with more language and currency options in the works. Contributions from members are credited to them and contributions from nonmembers are credited to the organizer’s club.
Since Raise for Rotary was launched in 2020, more than 1,500 events have generated more than $1 million for the World Fund, PolioPlus, the Disaster Response Fund, and Rotary’s areas of focus.
Learn more and start your fundraiser at rotary.org/raise.
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