On June 18th The Hutchinson Rotary Club hosted the Hutchinson Water Carnival Bike Ride. In the past the Water Carnival Bike Ride has been a quick 20 mile ride that ran north of Hutchinson to Piepenberg Park. In the past the event has been run and  hosted by the Hutchinson Jaycee club and the Hutchinson Water Carnival Committee. Thanks to the vision of the Hutchinson Rotary President (2010-2011) Rick Heidick this year the Hutchinson Rotary Club stepped in to help host the event and add a few layers to help the event grow.

This year for the first time the Water Carnival Bike Ride added a 65 mile route that started in Hutchinson, Mn and went north to the town of Dassel, Mn. There the route headed West to the town of Litchfield, Mn and then headed back to Hutchinson.On the route riders passed many lakes and follows long rolling and winding county roads. This makes for great scenery and very little traffic from motorists.

After months of planning the Bike Ride Committee of Hutchinson Rotary Club members Rick Heidick, Jim Ziegler, Steve Slater, Dassel Cokato Rotary Club member Chris Kleimnan, and Hutchinson Jaycee Chad Czmowski got to see the hard work pay off. The day of the bike ride the committee knew from preregistration that about 35 riders would attend. The committee hoped for 50 riders. And on the day of the ride 70 riders attended our event.

Thanks to multiple volunteers, the Hutchinson Jaycees, and donations from Hutchinson Rotary club members all 70 of those riders enjoyed a great ride. With well stocked and friendly rest stops, and excellent mechanical support provided by the staff at Outdoor Motion Bike Shop.

The Hutchinson Rotary Club is looking forward to hosting the event again next year and we hope to see you there.

We are proud of our park!  Take a look at some construction photos over the past year.  Thank you for all of your help making Rotary Park one of the nicest parks in town!

The Hutchinson Rotary Club recently had the opportunity to use the “World Cafe” discussion model at the Hutchinson Leadership Institute to discuss ethics.

The World Cafe organization describes this model:

As a conversational process, the World Café is an innovative yet simple methodology for hosting conversations about questions that matter. These conversations link and build on each other as people move between groups, cross-pollinate ideas, and discover new insights into the questions or issues that are most important in their life, work, or community. As a process, the World Café can evoke and make visible the collective intelligence of any group, thus increasing people’s capacity for effective action in pursuit of common aims.

We examined the following questions:

1. What is ethics?
2. What is business ethics?
3. How do your values shape your behavior as a leader?
4. Why does ethical behavior matter to you?
5. How do you as leaders encourage ethical behavior in others?
6. What would it take to create change in ourselves, our businesses, and our community to make ethical behavior a shared code of conduct for every aspect of our personal and professional interactions?

If you are interested in having a “World Cafe Conversation,”  we would be happy to faciliate.  Or if you would like to do it on your own, here are a few resources:

1. The World Cafe Website:  http://www.theworldcafe.com
2. A quick reference guide for putting conversations to work… (PDF)

Below are some photos from the event.