10/09/2026
📩 📪 This Week's Connections Challenge: Put It in Writing 📪 📩
When was the last time you opened your mailbox and found something that wasn't a bill, a catalog, or a "final notice" about your car's extended warranty? An envelope with your name written by hand, in handwriting you don't quite recognize, so you have to open it to find out who it's from? That small moment is what this week's challenge is about.
Here's the challenge: write a handwritten note to at least one fellow Roswell Rotarian and mail it to them. A real note, with a real stamp, in a real mailbox. When you drop it in, take a picture of your hand and the envelope going into the mailbox and send it to Alicia. Yes, we want proof. Think of it as evidence for the record.
Why a handwritten note? Because the effort is the point. Picking out a card or a sheet of paper, sitting down long enough to think about one person, choosing your words, finding their address, and getting it to the mailbox all take a small amount of intention. That intention says "I'm in." It's easy to slip into autopilot with Rotary: show up Thursday, grab lunch, clap for the speaker, head back to the office. There's nothing wrong with showing up. But the magic of this club has never come from just showing up. It comes from leaning in, and this is a small, very doable way to lean in.
There's some science behind this too. Researchers Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley studied people who wrote letters of appreciation and then asked them to predict how the recipient would feel. Again and again, the writers got it wrong. They underestimated how surprised and happy the recipients would be, and they overestimated how awkward it would feel. The writers worried about finding the perfect words. The recipients didn't care about perfect words. They were moved by the warmth of being thought of. In other words, your note will almost certainly land better than you think it will. So don't let "I don't know what to say" stop you. Being the person someone chose to write to is the message.
Now the fun part: this challenge is meant to spread. If you get a note, don't let the connection end with you. For every note you receive, send another one out. It doesn't have to be a reply, though it can be. Maybe the note you got made you think of someone else in the club who could use a word of encouragement, a thank-you, or just a "glad you're here." Pass it on. If we do this right, we'll have handwritten notes moving all over Roswell for weeks, and the post office will wonder what's going on.
Finally, if something meaningful comes out of this, whether it's a note that arrived at exactly the right time, a connection you didn't expect, or a story worth telling, please share it with us. Those stories are part of what holds this club together.
So find some paper, find a pen that works, and find your stamps. Write to a Rotarian. Mail it. Send Alicia Hughes the picture.
~President Leslie Bassett
Rotary District 6900
