One of the main dates in the diary of all incoming DGs and
Consorts is the visit to the International Assembly in San Diego in the second
week of January, 6 months before they
take office. In Vivian’s case that would
be January 2014, and obviously we were rather looking forward to going to an
exotic location in Southern California to rub shoulders with the great and good
of Rotary. It would be the pinnacle of my career as Consort to date.
Just after Christmas 2012, we received an invitation by
e-mail from District 6980 in Florida, inviting us both to a ‘Homestay program’
in their District, which covers the area around Orlando, during the first week
in January 2014, i.e. the week immediately preceding the International Assembly
in San Diego. Well, Florida is not somewhere we had ever been before, and to be
honest, Orlando had never really interested us, as Disney World was not very
high on our list of destinations to visit.
However, this was an opportunity to stay for a week with a
Rotarian family in Florida, and we were only asked to contribute $105 each for
our accommodation for a week. It really was an offer we did not feel we could
refuse. We guessed that the same invitation had been sent to every other
incoming DG in the world (over 500 of them) so not wishing to miss out, we
immediately wrote back to book our place, pointing out our requirement for
accessible accommodation. Our places were
confirmed by the US District in January 2013, so all that remained was
to await contact from our hosts later in the year.
Apparently District 6980 invite 20 incoming DGs
and their consorts each year, so we felt fortunate to have
been accepted. Later
we discovered that another Florida District made a similar offer, and also one
in New York state. As we are talking about mid-winter here, the new York state destination did not
appeal as much as Florida, and the
promise of winter sunshine.
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