Submitted by: Linda Marrin, District Trainer
 
At 170,000 square miles, District 5580 is one of the largest geographic districts in the world!  This makes training members of our 66 clubs a challenge because of the travel required by either trainers or participants or both!  Our training committee is always trying to find ways to meet these challenges to deliver needed and requested training to you.
 
The 11 members of the training committee come from all over our district, from Thunder Bay to Virginia to the Brainerd area to Bismarck!  Many of the members have additional club and district level responsibilities, it’s a busy team of hard working Rotarians.  We meet monthly by webinar and and are in the process of forming subcommittees to help take advantage of training opportunities and needs. 
On-site Training
We are currently working with DGE Blaine to prepare our LEAD (formerly PETS) pre-training and training.  We’re working with DG Debra and the district conference committee to organize training sessions for the conference.  We’ll conduct a survey after the conference to hear what attending Rotarians have to say about the conference, this input is valuable as we plan future conferences.
In October we delivered  OneRotarySummit sessions in Duluth and Fargo, attended by 80+ Rotarians from around the district.  Reviews of the session were excellent.
 
Technology and Alternatives to On-site Training Attendance
To help address the challenges of travel and time we are working with the Grants committee to develop online training modules and quizzes.  These sessions will allow Rotarians who have attended a grants seminar in the past to take advantage of refresher training at their convenience from wherever they have a computer.   We hope to work with other committees and district officers to develop training modules in their areas of expertise.
We recently formed a technology subcommittee and are exploring the use of technology for additional training and communication options for the district.  Since the OneRotarySummits were so well received we are hoping to stream the training to the far reaches of the district so those who weren’t able to travel to the on-site training can still take advantage of it to better their clubs and our district.  Training leadership at the Zone level is interested in having us pilot this approach because the use of new tools will be important throughout the zone going into the future. 
 
If you want information or have training needs ~or~ if you have ideas about using technology for district training and communication, please contact me!
 
Linda Marrin, D5580 Trainer
218-820-1772