Hello, Interact Advisors:
Happy New Year! Hope you and your clubs are gearing up for a productive 2nd semester, and are planning on joining us for our 4th Annual Interact District Conference at Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood on Saturday, February 25th. It is going to be the best yet!!
As you probably heard;
• The Early Bird Registration discounted fee of $20 has been extended to January 15th.
• To accommodate distant Interact Clubs, MUHS has offered to provide Friday night shelter.
So you need to register your club online, via our Interact website,www.rotaryazinteract.org, by Sunday, Jan. 15th, to save $5 per person on the full $25 registration fee.
If you and your club will be traveling from some distance, and want to take advantage of the opportunity to bring sleeping bags and spend Friday night in the gymnasium (or possibly in carpeted classrooms, depending on the number coming), you need to let me know, so I can relay the information to the MUHS administration. The local Rotarians are also working on the possibility of providing a simple breakfast on Saturday morning for the groups staying over Friday night. Groups will need to bring male and female Advisors to supervise their male and female students, since they will, of course, be sleeping in separate areas. We deeply appreciate Mingus Union High School's willingness to help accommodate the needs of groups that may be traveling a considerable distance to attend this Conference.
Will your Interact Club be the winner of this year's District Video Contest, and take home the coveted traveling plaque to keep and display until next year's Conference? Last year: Millennium High took 1st Place, Mohave High took 2nd Place, and Laughlin Jr/Sr High tied with Washington High for 3rd Place. Your club could be the winner this year! Your 3-minute video, showing how your club exemplifies this year's Rotary theme of "Rotary Serving Humanity" has to be uploaded to U-Tube, and the link to your video emailed to me, by Wednesday, Feb. 1st. I will then pass along those links to our panel; of judges. Any Interact club in Arizona, Needles, CA or Laughlin, NV, is eligible to enter the video contest this year. What has your club been doing, and what can your club members put together and submit by February 1st?
Please also remember to go to our Interact website, www.rotaryaxinteract.org, and report on how many food items your club collected this year with your canned food drive. We want to let everyone attending our Conference know the impact Interact has had on helping to feed the hungry in our communities this year. Please report this information by Feb. 15th.
Does your club qualify for the new Interact Clubs of Distinction recognition at the District Conference? Please check the attached criteria. If your club qualifies, please let us know what you have done, via our Interact website, www.rotaryazinteract.org, also by February 15th.
Finally, it's time to really concentrate your club's efforts on collecting crutches and other mobility devices for our Interact Crutches 4 Africa Project, so these can be brought to our Interact District Conference on February 25th at Cottonwood. It takes a lot of crutches to fill a 40-ft container. We need your club's best efforts to help us reach our statewide Interact goal.
Questions? Shoot them to Interact Chair Ken Kelley via an email (ken@kelleysinsurance.com), or call him at (623) 221-1956. Of course, you can always email me (arthts@msn.com), or call me (928) 245-0411, as well.
Great things are happening in kids' lives and in communities around our state because of Interact! Thank you for your committed leadership.
-- Art