This year will be a building-on-the-changes-and-asettling-in-year for all of us and we will need your help and co-operation to make it all happen.  I am still stunned and bemused, but delighted, that you have given me the opportunity to be RIBI President this year. We have an outstanding General Council, the "Dream Team", who are now looking forward to serving all of the Rotarians in RIBI this year. Their breadth and depth of knowledge and expertise, not only on Rotary subjects, means that, as a team, we can and will further improve the service to the most important people in our organisation, the Club Rotarian. They are here to help.

I know that many of you will have attended your District assemblies and ALL of you attended your Club Assemblies, didn’t you? Say "YES IAN". So, you are all aware of the emphases for this Rotary Year, but just in case you somehow missed out - a quick recap: RI President Dong Kurn Lee, known as DK, is a charismatic, committed, and at times emotional leader with a wicked sense of humour. He wishes to continue with the themes of Water, Literacy, Health & Hunger, and The Family of Rotary concentrating on helping to save the lives of children, so many of whom are dying daily throughout the world. Along with all of us, DK is so worried about membership. We MUST reverse the decline in RIBI. We MUST make sure that when we do induct a new member we make sure that he or she is well looked after. Membership recruitment and retention is a top priority. DK is also asking that we do seek out areas for New Club Formation.

New Club Charters have fallen to a sixty year low in RIBI and are now exceeded by Club closures. We must reverse this trend. The next chance you will have to meet and hear DK is at the Membership Conference in Hinckley on the 12th and 13th December this year. I recommend and encourage you to attend this event.

We’ve also been set a challenge by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to match their $100 million contribution over the next three years WITHOUT detracting from our normal "Every Rotarian Every Year" donations to our own charity. Your Foundation committee is working on ways to do this and will be giving us lots of advice, help and tips to achieve both of these objectives.

I am looking forward to visiting every District in RIBI this year. If your DGs get the planning right for these visits, I should be able to speak to representatives of around six hundred clubs. I’m sure every club will bring me up to date with their plans to implement the Club Leadership Plan, a plan that has shown such great success for so many clubs in other parts of the Rotary world. They will also confirm that their Club WILL receive a Presidential Citation this year, a "Fit for Purpose" certificate which will show that, once again, RIBI is leading the Rotary world.

Your "Dream Team" has asked that they continue support for local or national cancer care and research charities. I am delighted that they are doing this  ince, in common with so many of you, my family is also affected by the dread disease and we so look forward to cures and treatment being found. They have also unanimously agreed to support a partner charity, Leonard Cheshire Disability, to help them convert twenty schools in Uganda so that children of all disabilities can be included in the education system for the first time. It is a partnership and all of your RIBI committees are working together to help that support.  A real demonstration of "Joined up Rotary". The project is measurable, attainable, and sustainable.

Joan and I do look forward to meeting as many of you as possible this year. That is why I joined!

Ian Thomson

RIBI President 08-09