PG Rotary’s Web Log

Sometimes we read a lot of things, but it doesn’t relate to us as normal people. On this page, we have asked each of our members to write a short piece about themselves, about why they are in Rotary, about what they actually do in real terms. Read and enjoy!

Mark Miller, Jacintoville Village

Hi! I moved to Toledo in 2001, and came here as a volunteer with a local NGO known as Plenty Belize. I moved on to manage Plenty Belize beginning in October of 2002, and have made this my home! I love Toledo! When friends approached me to come to a meeting in January 2008 to learn about Rotary and starting a Rotary Club in PG, I was uncertain, but willing to learn. Mr. Jose Chan, who was then the manager of the then brand new Scotia Bank in PG, did a great job explaining Rotary, and motivating 25 of us to start this club! Service Projects are the center of Rotary in my mind. I love that we can help to get good things done in our community. This takes time, planning, labor, fundraising, and more time. But the results continue to amaze me! And I have been able to get to know great people while volunteering with Rotary!

All of us have different skills and abilities — some of which we don’t even realize we have : until we get a chance to put them into use! Due to my work with Plenty Belize, I came to Rotary with some knowledge and skills about writing proposals, managing grant projects, and writing reports. I was able to share these skills in Rotary by being the chairperson of the Projects Committee for the first two years as our club got up and running.  I have had great opportunities to talk with, meet, and work closely with some great people from US, Canada, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras because through Rotary.

I also found out I am quite inquisitive, and liked reading about Rotary and sharing this information with my fellow Rotarians in PG. During our third year as a club, I was honored to be the Club President. Well, there were only 8 of us, but we pulled together in friendship and a shared spirit of community service, and we got good projects done and attracted more people from the community to join us.

These last few years I have continued as Foundation Chair, using my inquisitiveness to try to understand the pilot project called Future Vision that Rotary embarked upon, and is becoming the norm for Rotary International worldwide in july 2014. Its been a lot of work, a lot of fun, and very rewarding.