Hello Okotoks Rotary! A Warm Welcome from your 2026-27 President
As we step into a brand-new Rotary year, I am incredibly honoured and excited to lead this team as your new Club President.
We have so much to be proud of. Our club is growing and evolving, and we have truly become a club to watch in our District. We are widely known as the friendly club, and that warmth remains our greatest asset.
However, as we grow, it's not sustainable to expect the same people to keep doing the same things on a larger scale. I believe we need to be highly intentional about what traditions and practices we carry into the future. To expand our impact, we need to increase participant engagement so that every member feels valued, heard, and involved.
For those reasons, I have built on this year's Rotary theme of “Create Lasting Impact” to set my own guiding theme our Club: “Intentional Impact, Welcoming Community”.
What does that mean for us? It means being thoughtful and purposeful with our time, our energy, and our projects so that everything we do makes a meaningful difference. It also means opening our doors wider than ever. I want to ensure our club is a vibrant, accessible, and welcoming space for anyone in Okotoks who shares a heart for service.
Rotary is at its best when we are connecting, having fun, and doing good together and by making some intentional changes at our meetings, I hope to bring more of that energy to our Club. I am so grateful for the dedication of our incredible volunteer Board and for each and every one of you for what you have done, do, or will do for Rotary.
Please always feel free to pull me aside at a meeting or reach out directly with your thoughts on how we can Create Lasting Impact in our community, the world, and ourselves. I would love to connect.
For those who don't know me well yet, I’ve called Okotoks home for the past 16 years, and been a Rotarian for three wonderful years. I am happily married to fellow Rotarian, Chris Deakin and together we parented two wonderful young adults, Carter (aged 22), and Ella (aged 20).
Professionally, I work as a business manager and life coach at Kindred Roots Therapy, and some of you might also remember me as the founder of Rebel Bean Coffee, a business that I sold in 2021.
What you can Expect
My educational background and most of my work experience has been in PR/Communications and so understand the value of effective and consistent communication.
I'm planning to commit to a monthly email bulletin, a 'What's Happening' email before every meeting, and a ‘Here’s what you Missed' email after each meeting.
But good communication is always two-way, so please reach out by phone, email, text, or let's go for coffee. I have Fridays off from work and am planning to dedicate them to Rotary as much as I can.
Meeting changes: What we Need From You
Starting later this month, meeting formats will be changing to have one Rotary-focussed meeting per month where we'll talk about Club business, host speakers, and invite presentations from within our Rotary network. The second meeting of the month is the time we will invite speakers from outside Rotary to join us. This is where we need your help!
To keep our meetings full of energy, great information, and real inspiration, we plan to focus on presentations that highlight community impact, shared human experiences, or personal and professional growth.
I would love for each of you to take a quick peek through your own networks. Who do you know who fits that bill and would love to share their story with us? We are always on the lookout for fresh voices that align with our Rotary spirit of service and give us something great to think about.
As you brainstorm, just keep a couple of our friendly house rules in mind. We always want to protect our members' time, so we don't allow direct sales pitches or business solicitations. Also, to make sure our club remains a truly welcoming, community-first space for everyone, I'd like to keep our podium strictly non-partisan, which means we won't be inviting representatives from politial parties to speak this year.
If you know an awesome local innovator, a passionate change-maker, or a great storyteller who can inspire us into action, please drop a note. I can't wait to see who you bring forward!
