Kiwanis Experience

Embrac­ing my west­ern roots at the San Anto­nio Kiwa­nis Inter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion.

In Kiwa­nis we wear dif­fer­ent hats, hold dif­fer­ent offices and call our­selves by dif­fer­ent titles. That said, the title that I am most proud to have is: Kiwan­ian. We all vol­un­teer to help our com­mu­ni­ties in our own way and they are stronger for it.

I joined Kiwa­nis ini­tial­ly, while Pro­gram Man­ag­er of our local TV sta­tion. I want­ed to help local Kiwa­nis Club’s enthu­si­as­tic mem­bers with their tele­vi­sion  auc­tion. Thir­ty years lat­er, I still serve Kiwa­nis.

Each of us run­ning for this posi­tion of Vice-Pres­i­dent have trav­elled a sim­i­lar path, from Club Pres­i­dent and Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor to Gov­er­nor and Inter­na­tion­al Trustee. The expe­ri­ence that I have gar­nered, in Kiwa­nis and with­out, have giv­en me a unique skillset to bring to this role of Inter­na­tion­al Vice Pres­i­dent.

As Club Pres­i­dent, through a mem­ber­ship growth ini­tia­tive that I imple­ment­ed, we grew our strug­gling club by 40%. It was a team effort as every tru­ly suc­cess­ful pro­gram always is.

Our New Brunswick province is a proud Key Club sup­port­er. Here, their pres­i­dent edu­cates me on some key projects.

As Gov­er­nor of the East­ern Cana­da and Caribbean Dis­trict, one of the most diverse dis­tricts in Kiwa­nis, I worked with a tal­ent­ed group of lead­ers to help restruc­ture how we did busi­ness, and how we were gov­erned. The results of these efforts have saved us Kiwa­nis dol­lars and stream­lined our Board’s deci­sion mak­ing process.

A keen sup­port­er of the Kiwa­nis For­mu­la, I served as our District’s Chair for the first three years. I enjoyed build­ing an enthu­si­as­tic team and con­duct­ing a series of train­ing sum­mits all designed to empow­er my fel­low Kiwa­ni­ans. We worked hard to open new clubs and strength­en exist­ing clubs. Our team is proud of the new clubs that we built and the new mem­bers that helped induct.

As the Eye of the Tiger Chair for North Amer­i­ca, I know that new club open­ing is key to our sur­vival. Every­one of us know that Kids Need Kiwa­nis…

…and Kiwanis Needs More Kiwanians.

A Kiwa­nis Moment for me was attend­ing the New Orleans Con­ven­tion as Pres­i­dent of my club in Owen Sound along­side my Dad, Char­ter Pres­i­dent of his Kiwa­nis Club in Tama­rac, Flori­da. It was a proud moment.

What I’ve Learned: Working as a team accomplishes so much more.