President Martha was unable to preside over last week’s meeting due to her pressing workload at the bank and, therefore, PP Ken Uyeno volunteered to step in.

Jo Anne Nishigaya lifted our spirits by announcing the names of the four RCWW Club Scholarship awardees for this year.  They are Allyson Agustin of Waialua High, Ana Liza Capulong and Mary Grace Paneda of Leilehua High and Landan Yoshida of Maryknoll School.  Each will be presented with a scholarship certificate at their respective school’s award ceremonies, to be followed by a check for $1,000 which will be sent to each of them by mail.

Since no speaker was scheduled, Ken asked Membership Chair David Matsushita to say a few words about the upcoming plans to increase our club’s membership in the coming months.  However, before David’s talk, Ken set the stage by discussing the challenges our club has been facing to this point.

It is apparent to everyone that we have lost many key members in the recent past and will soon lose a few more by the end of this Rotary year.  Pressing job commitments, distance and lack of direction have all contributed to our declining roster.

“It is obvious that the model that our club has followed up until now is no longer working.  The pressures of modern-day challenges to succeed have prevented today’s young professionals to join “service only” clubs, like Rotary,” said Ken.

In response to this, David outlined his idea to bolster our prospects of continuing as a viable service organization.  On June 29^th, we will be having our Installation Celebration / Rock and Roll Fundraiser which will kick off the beginning of the new direction we will be taking in the future.

At this event, it will be announced that, each month, we will be hosting a “Pau Hana” business / community networking meeting to bring business and community leaders together to share ideas and get to know one another more intimately.  This will be an opportunity for many up-and-coming and established businesses to connect with one another to findways of supporting one another.

While developing this plan, PE Nancy Barry had recently stated that Rotary International already recognizes the need for club meetings to be a focus for business networking so she is fully in support of this change.