Good morning, friends.
Both Rotarians here, present and online. Every single day, there are millions of people around the world who silently cry out to us. Their cry, although silent, gets to our ears.
And every single day, as Rotarians, we respond in unison. We respond by telling them that you will never walk alone. From wherever they are, we listen to them and we respond.
We take it as a duty, we take it as a responsibility, and we take it as an obligation to respond to the cries of the millions of people that I have just talked about. This is something that we renew every single year. Every 1st of July, we commit ourselves that we will always stand with those who need us, with those who look up to us.
And friends, exactly 102 days ago, we renewed that commitment and we said yes, we will continue walking with you.
We will remain with you. We said yes to early mornings. We said yes to late night calls.
We said yes to serving where possibly a number of people would choose to walk away. And today, we don't come here to boast because we support people, because we stand with people who need us. But friends, today we stand here to account for the 100 days of service.
In those 100 days in our different clubs, we have not held meetings, but we have held both together. Each time we sit in our committees, each time we sit in our clubs, we are discussing hope and work towards giving hope to the people who look up to us. In those 100 days, friends, we have built our numbers because we believe that when we have the right numbers, we are able to respond to many more of those people.
Friends, we have given to the foundation, but I want to say that we have not just given money. We have given meaning through the Rotary Foundation. We have given life. We have given livelihood. We have given health. We have given futures to people.
And I want to thank us all for that. We have built confidence that Rotary works. With every single story about the good that we do in the world, people get to appreciate us, people get to know about us, and people get to love us.
People get to come and associate with us. But my friends, 100 days is not the end of the journey. It is just proof that this journey is possible.
And the journey we will be presenting in the various statistics that we will be showing shortly. Friends, we started with one belief of crazy ideas and the little things. And that belief is meant to ensure that we Create Lasting Impact in the world.
Crazy ideas to think outside the box. Crazy ideas where we bring innovation as a key component of what we do and how we do things. But never forgetting about the little things that matter.
And we continue living that. Friends, we have clean water flowing in various places. Perfect Nursery and Primary school is celebrating today because of clean water.
It's because of Rotary. That village in Nebbi where generations have only heard about clean water. They have seen clean water flow we have provided. We have provided free-medical care to so many people.
We have provided mentorship. We have given children the opportunity to read and learn. We have saved lives throughout our road safety campaigns.
In the next hundred days, we will ask more of us, dear friends. More focus, more teamwork, more heart. So today, I ask of all of us one thing; that let us not count days going forward but let us make every single day count as Rotarians. Every single day that we lose, a life is affected somewhere.
Let us give meaning to every single day. Because meaning that we give to the days ahead will translate into meaning to so many people's lives. Because when we work together, impossible becomes possible.
And we remain united in one strong voice. That first and foremost, as a family, no one should ever walk alone. And those who need us will never walk alone.
My friends, I now would like to take us through the highlights of the hundred days. But friends, these are just highlights. The district executive secretary will be able to send a more comprehensive report.
My fellow Rotarians and Rotaractors, both here present and online. To date, on the Rotary side, we have been able to contribute $380,000 to the Foundation of which $170,000 is to the Annual Fund.
The endowment fund stands at $7,773. Polio Plus at $44,000. And other funds, these are donations that go towards approved Global Grants, stand at slightly over $92,000.
We have registered 20 Major Donors as of this morning. And in that, I want to single out and recognize the Rotary Club of Kololo, Kampala, that has so far contributed 9 MDs to that pool.
I would also like to mention the Rotary Club of Upper Kololo that has already crossed the $25,000 mark to the foundation.
I do recognize all the clubs that have so far given to the foundation. We have three major gifts. These are people who have given straight $10,000 to the foundation in this Rotary year.
We stand at 145 PHFs, three benefactors, 199 sustaining members, 431 every year, and 96 all-having society eligible members. These are people who have contributed a minimum of $1,000 to the foundation this Rotary year.
Friends, in terms of utilization, again as our target of $5 million, we have 12 Global Grants to the tune of $944,434 that have been approved.
Out of that, over $600,000 have already been paid. The rest are just waiting funds to be sent through. My dear friends, we can't talk about utilization minus having our clubs qualified.
Because stewardship remains at the heart of our implementation of Global Grants. Today, we have 46 Rotary clubs that have so far qualified. And as the District Rotary Representative Alex mentioned, 12 Rotaract clubs have also already qualified.
And that means we are building up our capacity and our ability to have more Global Grants come into force so that we are able to hit our target of $5 million.
Friends, I did say that in order for us to maintain our momentum and increase our ability to impact more people, to reach out to many more people, we need to grow our numbers. And today, we have a net increase of 259 new Rotarians.
Again, my dear friends, this figure is low because we issued guidelines and we are very clear on that. We do not want to have people who just come to pick Rotary pins since we do not have systems in place to retrieve those pins. So we do not want people who only want to take advantage of laxity on our attraction site, get inducted and disappear.
Without following those guidelines, nobody should be inducted. And my dear friends, this is a call I would like to repeat, that let us not induct anyone whom we plan to remove from the system in December or in June. Let us induct those who want to be part of us.
Let us not make it very easy for people to come and get Rotary pins and go and utilize them for wrong reasons. We have today added one new club, the Rotary club of Kapala Islanders, to our family and therefore we now stand at 152 Rotary clubs. We have two clubs in provisional status and we are looking forward to chartering those clubs, those two clubs, before the time of this calendar year.
We have one coast-based club in formation, we have another 15 Rotary clubs in formation, 20 in ideation, 3 corporate clubs in formation. But we have additionally mapped out 68 areas where we can potentially have new Rotary clubs. We have mapped 12 for Rotaract and 30 for Interact clubs.
My dear friends, I did mention that the district membership team has rolled out a number of guidelines. From attraction, to retention, to engagement and even termination. We do not want to see situations where you wake up in the morning and you find that you are no longer a member.
The district has held a membership reward and recognition gala that took place on the 27th of August this year. And we have conducted a number of mentorship series that takes place twice every month from 7 to 8 o'clock in the morning. My dear friends, we need to always talk about the things that we do.
We need to send out and make people aware of the so many things we are engaged in. We have sustained Rotary's visibility campaign through #RotaryEyamba and #RotaryKonyo. We have sustained monthly publication of the Wave and I hope we continue reading the wave and contributing.
Additionally, my dear friends, as a district we have launched the quarterly regional newsletter, The Compass. And the first edition came out on the 30th of September. The Campus is designed to give clubs visibility.
And the first edition gave a lot of visibility to a number of clubs in the various regions, eastern, northern and west central regions. We have strategically maintained and shifted our storytelling towards beneficiaries. And most of these are centered on Impact stories.
We have sustained and maintained our media visibility as a district through the various social media handles that we have at the district. But I would also like to applaud our partner, NBS, Next Media, that has consistently supported us and given us visibility.
My dear friends, we will only be able to do a lot more if we continue strengthening our clubs. And at the beginning of the Rotary year, one of the key things that we decided on was to strengthen governance in the clubs. And I want to applaud the governance team, led by governance chair, governance and ethics chair, Flavia Serugo.
Through that clubs are supposed to report on a monthly basis. And on average, 75% of Rotary clubs have continued reporting on a monthly basis. But strategies are in place to ensure that we have more and more clubs reporting.
The target is that by the end of this Rotary year, we should have all the clubs reporting. In that period, the governance and ethics team has supported 14 Rotary clubs, including physical visits and engagement with a number of these clubs. I think let's clap for them.
Friends, permit me to say that in some of those clubs, there were serious issues and some of them were on the verge of collapse. Some of them were on the verge of splitting up. But because of the visits by the governance and ethics team, a lot of these issues have been resolved, or at least they have been calmed down a little bit.
There have been nine governance awareness interventions covered by this team. And there have been 85 club risks managed internally through the interventions of the governance and ethics team. There has been an awareness threshold through the web talks and club retreats.
Friends, another new innovation that has come from the governance and ethics team is the governance and ethics lounge series. I don't know how many of us had the opportunity to listen to the very first tour that took place, I think, about two weeks ago. Seems to have very few of us.
But my dear friends, I would like to invite you to listen to the recording. I don't think I have ever had such a powerful discussion in Rotary. And I would like to applaud the three speakers of the day, Vice President Robina from the Rotary Club of Kampala, Vice President Stephen Lwanga from the Rotary Club of Kampala, and Vice President Peter Kimbowa from the Rotary Club of Muyenga.
So, my dear friends, let us stay tuned to the next one which will be coming up. So, my dear friends, we continue strengthening our internal cohesion and unity. And we continue recognizing the men and women who serve diligently.
And through the family of Rotary, we have been able to reach out to a number of Rotarians. But more significantly, 70% of the clubs have had their family of Rotary officers trained since the beginning of this Rotary year. And we continue doing that because our Rotary clubs remain a strong component of our existence and of our commitment.
We have launched a committee annual calendar. We have held a mental health and general wellness talk that is focused on ourselves as Rotarians and Rotaractors. We have held sensitization talks at the Cancer Run in partnership with the District 9214, the family of Rotary, and more significantly, we celebrated 56 Rotarians who have served for 25 years at the pre-independence fellowship that was hosted by the Rotary Club of Bukoto.
I know some people may be asking that why did we only celebrate Rotarians and not Rotaractors? Friends, if we have a Rotaractor who has been in Rotaract for 25 years without transition, I think that one deserves a special celebration. And we will celebrate that one during the district conference in the northern city of Gulu. So my dear friends and family, in the period since the start of this Rotary year, we have lost a number of our members.
And each time we lose a member, we feel extremely sad. We stand in solidarity with the families of all our members who have left us, but equally we stand in solidarity with the members who are mourning the loss of their loved ones.
When we lose a family member, we get affected in one way or the other. So my dear friends, those are the key highlights of this Rotary year. In the 100 days, I have been able to visit 70 Rotary Clubs.
Those visits have revealed that we have so much potential, we have so much ability, we have a lot that we can do. I look forward to visiting the remaining 80 clubs. But even as I plan for that, my dear friends, I would like to call upon us to recalibrate the next 100 days.
And to start with, we will have a retreat with all the Impact Presidents in the northern city of Gulu from the 16th to the 18th of this month. We want to use that to energize the presidents. But we also believe that by energizing the presidents, the same will be transmitted to all the Rotarians in the district.
Friends, to all of us, my call to action is that let us move from intent to impact. Let us move from pledges to action. Let us look at our goals and work aggressively towards achieving them.
Let us enhance our giving to the foundation. Let us bring on board more people. Let us continue taking Rotary where it has meaning and has relevance.
That is the community. Rotary has no meaning, has no relevance in our meeting places if we do not take them to the community. It has no meaning or relevance at Silver Springs, at Colline, Boma Hotel, Africana, Protea, Ndere Center, name it.
If we do not take Rotary out, let us continue touching lives. Let us continue implementing impactful projects. Friends, membership remains our number one internal priority.
Let us continue growing our membership. Let us bring on board more people. Through more people, we'll have more hands, we'll have more ideas, we'll have more resources.
Let us bring on board more people to help us do the things that we intend to do. As we do that, my dear friends, let us remain united as a family. Where we need to support one another, let us do that.
Where we feel we are being weighed down by something, let us come out, let us talk about it. Our mental health is very important, is key to us doing the things that we want to do. I want to thank you all for listening to me and I do wish us the very best of the second quarter of the Rotary year 2026-2027.
Thank you.
District Governor Gerald Obai.