District governor Tom Marshall, his wife and fellow Rotarian Joey Marshall, their exchange student from Sweden, Louise Arvestahl and Assistant governor Al Strohschein were at our meeting.  Governor Marshall talked about the new Rotary International theme of “Make Dreams Real”.  He stated that 26000 kids below the age of 5 die each day.  The majority of these are preventable deaths.  He wants each rotary club to come up with a project to reduce child mortality. Governor Tom touched on many other projects that he would like our club to get involved with such as EREY, Every Rotarian Every Year, which is where each individual member donates $100 a year.  He also mentioned Youth Exchange, Ambassadorial Scholarships, Friendship Exchange and Group Study Exchange, among others.  The main goal is still to eradicate polio and for this they want each club to give $1000 a year for 3 years.  The Bill Gates Foundation has donated $100 million to this project and Rotary has to match these funds over a 3 year period.  Polio is still an issue in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.  Betty Faas shared with the club how Polio had affected the lives of some of her friends and led to their deaths.  She proposed a challenge for our club; if we can come up with $1000 in a month, she will match it herself. Governor Tom also asked us to increase our membership and challenged each of us to ask one person to join Rotary. The last thing they mentioned was  the 2009 District 6250 Conference, which will take place May 1,2,3 2009 in Wisconsin Rapids.