Rotary Club of Sonoma Sunrise is looking for new members. Tony Moll and Sam Morphy, two members of the long-time Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley, have been working to launch the new club for more than a year now.
Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley has hosted lunch meetings for more than 70 years, but those meetings are not always convenient for those whose personal or professional commitments may take precedent. Moll, Morphy and a handful of others began meeting as a morning group on the first and third Tuesday mornings of each month at Morphy’s Red Grape restaurant before the October fires.
“Rotary Club of Sonoma Valley has grown to nearly 100 members,” said Marck Zuehlsdorff, the club’s current president. “But some people expressed an interest to meet in the morning with a smaller group. The Sunrise club meets their needs.”
“The luncheon meetings take more than 90 minutes out of the middle of the day,” said Moll. “We love being involved in Rotary, but for some of us, business or personal obligations make it difficult to get to the midday meetings. Our Sunrise group makes that moot. Our meetings start at 7 a.m., and our goal is to be done so we can be at work before 9 a.m.”
The two groups will be independent of each other, but will also collaborate on community projects. “Our fire relief efforts were the first of many worthwhile community projects for both groups to contribute our time and resources to,” said Zuehsldorff.
“The Sunrise group needed 20 members to be recognized by Rotary International, and we’ve met that now,” said Moll. “It’s interesting to note that besides me and Sam, all of the members in the morning club are new Rotarians, so Sonoma will benefit even more now from Rotary’s efforts.”
Rotary connects 1.2 million members of more than 34,000 Rotary clubs in over 200 countries and geographical areas. Their work ranges from helping families in need in their own communities to working toward a polio-free world.
Visit rotary.org and endpolio.org for more about Rotary and its efforts to eradicate polio.
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