Speakers

This year's Presidential theme is “Rotary Opens Opportunities” and we are charged to grow rotary and ensure it is an invitation to endless opportunities. The best way to grow rotary is to inspire and motivate existing members and to look for potential members who are missing. Come ready to be inspired and learn how diversity and inclusion will help you during your rotary year and beyond with Dr. “Bowtie” Todd “Moving from Diversity to Inclusion” This presentation is not your ordinary diversity talk, so come prepared to learn and have fun.

Jim Hummel - Recipient of Radio Television Digital News Association’s Edward R. Murrow Award and two Associated Press Awards, all for investigative reporting; he is also a five-time nominee in the regional Emmy Awards.

The Hummel Report is funded by individual and corporate donors and foundation grants. The Hummel Report is a non-partisan, non-profit with an IRS 501(c)3 designation and donations to the organization are 100% tax deductible to the full extent of the law.  WE DO NOT ACCEPT DONATIONS FROM POLITICIANS OR POLITICAL ORGANIZATION - NOR DO WE ACCEPT TAX-FUNDED GRANTS

R.W. Alley has illustrated over one hundred books for children. His books have received many awards and have appeared on numerous best-seller lists. For the past twenty years he’s illustrated Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear books in all their formats. Mr. Alley also writes his picture books, most recently four books about the fantastical adventures of four siblings, Gretchen, Clark, Mitchell and Annabelle. For many years he has illustrated both the adult and the kids Elf-Help series of self-help books that are available world- wide.

In his own words, “My parents saved everything, so I know that I began drawing sometime around age two. I have gotten slightly better at hands, but horses remain a problem. For an only child, growing up in New York, Texas, South Carolina and finally for most of the time in Annapolis, Maryland, drawing was fine self-entertainment. Then, as now, I have always enjoyed most making pictures that illustrate a story rather than might hang on a wall. I make my pictures in a studio that has a rolling ladder, more books than I can count and many tubes of half-used, rock-hard paint. I started illustrating books right out of college in 1979. I didn’t go to art school, but received a BA in Art History from Haverford College and then spent four years as a staff artist at several greeting card companies.”

Zoë B. Alley is the author of two multi-starred books of re-invented fairy tales, There’s a Wolf at the Door, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year and its companion book There’s a Princess in the Palace, both presented in an over-sized graphic panel format and illustrated by R.W. Alley.

In her own words, “Having grown-up in a family of “literary grammarians”, I have always been interested in words, recited and written. From an early age in Natick, Massachusetts, I participated in both theatre and music-related events, finishing up a whirlwind career in my early teens as a perpetual chorus member! I have, however, learned to deal with this fateful blow. I rallied, and am at long last thrilled to call myself an “Author” and see my words in print with the publication of “There’s a Wolf at the Door”!  

Marcello is the most seasoned member of La Gondola Providence's talented group of gondoliers, as well as the company's owner, president, and spokesperson. He started rowing gondolas in 1999, while still in college at Lehigh University. A career in teaching allowed him to keep his his summer job as a gondolier while still working full time. After eight seasons of working for his former employers, he purchased the company and two gondolas, and La Gondola Providence was born. Marcello has been a mainstay on the river ever since, training an excellent crew of gondoliers, singing at every opportunity, and both marveling at and showing off the amazing Renaissance City of Providence to locals and tourists alike.  He lives in Foster at the international headquarters of La Gondola Providence with First Gondolady Bryna and their children, Aine and Aelyn, affectionately nicknamed Moonbeam and Little Star.