President‛s Message July 2016

I am honored and also apprehensive to begin my year as your club president. For me it is a new experience to be a leader of our GREAT Club. As you know I have been a member for a long time and have fulfilled many different functions over the years. It was sometimes challenging but also very rewarding.

Some of the moments will stay with me forever. I appreciate that we all are individuals with different professions, backgrounds and still are able to come and work together.

As we celebrated 4 th of July I was reminded how I got where I am today. I came from a socialist country where individualism was crushed and many in response adopted a very selfish sentiment embodied in this saying “ who does not steal from government steal from his family ” and where help such as picking potatoes or harvesting hobs by students was forced under threat of expulsion from school. Philanthropy and volunteer work was almost nonexistent. I truly appreciate our freedoms and responsibilities which are part of it. It is not a surprise that Rotary began in this country and became a force worldwide. I am proud to be a Rotarian and with help of you all we will have the privilege to help. I am following in footsteps of many great presidents and hope to continue and build on what they have done. I want to make sure that we all have voice and can steer direction of this club. I am open to ideas, comments and criticism (within limits). It is important to me that we enjoy what we do, have fun doing it, enjoy each other‛s company, and do not take ourselves too seriously.

Jitka