Upcoming February Events

Feb. 1 - "Four Way Test Award" - Jack Blaylock (pres. by Larry Cain & Brent Keene)

Feb. 6 - 6 PM Board of Directors Meeting

Feb. 8 - "World Understanding Month" - pres. by Pam Ray, Rene Plante, Ray Smith

Feb. 15 - Classification Talks - Keith Brandis & Sharon Reilly

Feb. 22 - Special Luncheon Meeting with Kernersville Foundation
Speaker: Nido Qubein, President of High Point University

March 1 - OPEN HOUSE

February has been designated as "World Understanding Month". We who think of ourselves as a Rotary Club in the "heart of the triad" find it easy to focus on "just Kernersville". But recent events force us to consider that we are part of the "whole world": President Bush's recent visit to a local "world class" factory - a factory connecting two diverse cultures; the establishment of Dell in our neighborhood - a prime example of world wide supply-chain success; the coming installation of FedEx at PTI - a connection to the world on an overnight basis unknown just a few years ago. These examples point to a reality of "world connectivity" that we must attempt to understand if we are to survive and prosper.

Most of us believe that "people are generally the same everywhere". We have good law abiding people here in our Kernersville neighborhood and we have a few who are not. Some neighborhoods are very nice - some not so nice - perhaps scary. This seems to be the same everywhere around the world. A Peace Scholar lecturer (from Russia) at the Chapel Hill Peace Symposium last year succinctly gave Rotarians our charge: "If you do not visit the bad neighborhoods, the bad neighborhoods will visit you." Ted Turner speaking to Rotarians in Chicago last year said: "If you go out into the world looking for enemies you will find some - and you will make some. If you go out into the world looking for friends you will find some - and you will make some."

To reach out and attempt to understand the world is a challenge. No better ones to do this than those Rotarians in the "heart of the triad."