New officers announced for Rotary Club
New officers of the Rotary Club of North Fort Myers officially took over the July 1, to continue the local Rotary mission.
Deena Westberry is now president; with Dave Rice, president-elect; Ray Hair, vice president; Dwight Sedgwick, secretary/treasurer; and Dennis Brooks, sergeant at arms.
Schumate welcomed Westberry, and thanked club members and the board for support through his term.
“It’s been a great year and I know Deena will do a great job this year,” he said.
Member Mary Havener also thanked many members who helped provide hurricane food supplies to residents at Palmona Park.
“We had two full tables recently with over 200 pounds of food,” she said.
“We’ve already donated to date about $800 in food to Palmona Park through the year,” added Sedgwick.
The group also announced that its golf tournament fund-raiser – one of the biggest events for the Rotary for the year – will be held Oct. 24 at Magnolia Landing Golf Club.
The speaker at the last meeting was Dottie Hummel of Dottie Hummel Consulting, who talked about a timely subject – stress.
“We all have stress in these challenging times,” she said. “If you get consumed, what is going to happen? You get sick. Your physical state of health is effected by your stress level.”
She went over some of the basic and simple ways to beat stress:
n When you have too much to do and not enough time to do it, organize yourself. Take better control of the ways you are spending your time and energy.
n Avoid perfectionism.
n Be less rigid – flexibility leads to relaxation.
n Laugh! This is one of the purist and total release of tension.
n Exercise – people in good physical condition are much better able to stand up to their stressors.
n Take time to enjoy the fun things in life and remind yourself that you are worth it.
“Worry and stress create a sustained level of cortisol in the brain causing impaired mental functioning, effect memory and contribute to cardiac problems,” she stated. “And worse yet, the prolonged presence of this steroid hormone accelerates aging.”
She said some home counseling is available through Family Home Health Services, a Fort Myers-based business, which may be covered by Medicare with a physician order.
Hummel specializes in marketing healthcare services and is a regular guest speaker on a variety of health related topics.
In other Rotary news, you can still support North Fort Myers Rotarian of the Year Danielle Hall in a major national Rotary fund-raiser, a five-day, 300-mile bicycle marathon to raise money for the Rotary.
Redmond Rotary 2009 Redspoke is the event, which will be held July 15-19. The 300-mile ride is in Washington state, going through the Cascade Mountains. Her son lives in the town.
Hall did the ride last year. She’s hoping to get more donations for this year’s ride. Any donation is welcome. Redmond Rotary uses 100 percent of the net proceeds for donations to support literacy programs and transitional housing through Hopelink and adult developmentally disabled education programs through Bellevue College. (To learn more go to redspoke.org/ charities.htm.)
“Donations are completely tax deductible because of Rotary,” said Hall. “The Web site allows you to print out the receipt with the tax ID number.”
There is a specific link that goes directly to her donation site: active.com\donateredspoke2009\dhall158, or you can call her at her business at 543-9101.
The Rotary Club of North Fort Myers meets every Thursday at 8 a.m. at Del Tura Country Club.