Week 1

Now it really started. I walked my first few miles that will count towards this audacious goal of walking almost 2,500 miles and raising $ 500,000. So far so good.

How do I do this? The question never occurred to me. I just started walking

Why Munich to Calgary? This one is easy to answer: The Rotary International Convention in 2025 will be in Calgary and Munich is my hometown.

And why such audacious goals you may ask. It all started in March 2024 at High Country PETS in Denver. RI Past President and current Chair of the Trustees of The Rotary Foundation Mark Daniel Maloney was delivering his keynote speech titled "Mark's Magical Markers".

And that's what it said:

Mark's Magical Markers:

1. July 1st -August 31st: time for a personal contribution

December 31st: time for a personal contribution (Endowment Fund) - "Have a skin in the game."

Goal: 2025 billion in 2025

2. Increase Rotary Direct members by 5 (or whatever fits for your club)

3. Increase Polio Plus Society members by 5 (or whatever fits for your club)

$ 100 /year to the Polio Plus Fund

4. Increase Paul Harris Society members by 5 (or whatever fits for your club)

$ 1000 /year to the annual fund of TRF

And while sitting there and listening to Mark's speech I thought: there needs to be a way to do more. And my creative mind was spinning and the start of something bigger was born.

I then was doing some research and thinking: I don't want to only do a regular fundraiser. This is what we do all the time. It's the bread and butter of our business and the core of how we finance our work. I wanted it to be different, to stand out, to get peoples' attention.

Because with all the good reasons to donate to, why should they give to my fundraiser. Why Rotary. So I thought: this needs to be big, this needs to be different to be successful.

And here we are. I'm now committed to walk almost 2,500 miles and raise up to $ 500,000. But you know what? With the magic of Rotary, this will be possible.

The results of the first week:

Miles walked: 12,12 (19.5 km)

To be honest: This is not what I actually walked. I walked way more. But since I had difficulties with my smart watch around week 3, most of the data of these early days is lost. So I will go with what is recorded and need to make up for it later on.

It may sound silly to a lot of people, but I was not a pro in using a smart watch or an app who counts steps. This is a new world I'm stepping in here, but I'm eager to learn along the way. Help and advice is always appreciated.

What I want to highlight most here is the first donation to my fundraiser. It felt incredible good to acutally have people out there see what I do and share the same goal in supporting TRF. Thank you!