Once again, we had several excellent opportunities for small-group fellowship among members of our Club at Maui Brewing Company in Kailua on Monday, TEX 808 BBQ & Brews in Hawaii Kai on Tuesday and Nico’s at Pier 38 on Wednesday.  I was delighted to be joined in Kailua by Jake Jacobs and his wife Frankie, Carolann Biederman, Lynne Waters, Clif Purkiser, Rich Proctor and Nancy Youngren.  Then in Hawaii Kai, I joined Rick Tabor, Mitch D’Olier, Kent Reinker, Judy Lind, Dawn Marie, Reese Liggett, Leslie Allen, Dennis Lind and Tom Coyne.  Sadly, I was not able to join the small crew at Nico’s, but Ian Wetherell sent me a photo of himself, Rick Towell and Nancy Grekin enjoying the fresh caught delicacies that they serve.  I believe, and many other members of the Club have told me, that these opportunities to engage with each other in a more direct and interactive way (as compared to sitting together listening to a speaker at our regular meetings) is an important part of building connections within the Club.  If you have not signed up for one of these events, you should definitely consider making an effort to join one in the future.

One of the other things that I encourage everyone in the Club to do is to consider sponsoring a Paul Harris event.  Especially for newer members, this is an opportunity to highlight your business or personal interests (like outside non-profit organizations that you support) for other members of the Club.  We have an upcoming opportunity for this during the week of June 8-12.  We will not have a regular meeting that week, but once we have Paul Harris events scheduled, everyone should also look for an opportunity to join one of them as you are available.  They are an excellent opportunity to learn about what other members of our Club do when they are not engaging in fellowship at The Pacific Club during our regular meetings.

Finally, I want to urge everyone to think about signing up to attend the District Conference in August.  It is a great opportunity to meet Rotarians from other Clubs across the state, as well as learning about many of the things that the district does for the Clubs on the various islands.  Today (May 15) is the last day of the “early bird” discount rate, and you can also sign up for “a la carte” activities at the Conference if you are not able to attend the entire event.

Remember that next week we will be at the Oahu Country Club for our regular meeting.  Our speaker will be Yann Cloatre, who will lead a “Not-So-Technical Discussion of Your Privacy in the Era of AI”.  As always, I hope to see many of you there.

Mahalo nui loa