By CHRIS CASE

Like many other long-time community service organizations, our Kingston Rotary is a local club in an organizational structure that links from a district all the way up to the Rotary International level. With a million members world-wide, Rotary needs this kind of connectedness to keep everybody informed about which projects are happening and where funding is needed.

This month the District Governor of Rotary Harold (Alex) Alexander and his wife Marnee stopped by our Kingston club for lunch. Their goal is to visit every club during his term of office. When you recognize that District 5020 is one of the largest in the world, you begin to realize how many miles it is to go visiting. District 5020 includes Western Washington and much of British Columbia.

We were prepared for his visit with a songsheet that had the words to “Oh, Canada,” properly honoring our Canadian visitor. We were all on our very best behavior.

This grand poobah turns out to be a great, friendly guy. He promptly congratulated us on our singing and gave out an award. Was the award for outstanding fundraising, or most meetings in a lifetime, or some other prestigious achievement?

No, he gave an award to Dan Martin for being “the most fun.”

Stressing the importance of having fun together while we try to achieve good things for our community and the world was a message that certainly surprised me. But, that message is one of the main reasons our little Kingston club has been growing. We have fun, we laugh often and we truly enjoy each other’s company.

Service without fun would be boring, indeed. It’s great to hear that even the higher-ups in our organization also recognize the value of fun.

If you are interested in the fun, fellowship and community service projects of Kingston Rotary, you are invited to attend one of our lunchtime meetings on Wednesdays.

Email nanjmartin@aol.com for more information about Rotary.