Incoming President Kathy's message to RERC
I am so honored and excited to be President of Richardson East Rotary Club for the coming year. Having just returned from the Rotary International Convention in Sydney, Australia, I am energized by the stories told by people who are doing Rotary’s good work, exemplifying service above self. I would strongly recommend and encourage anyone who has not yet attended an International Convention, to do so. We, as Rotarians, have so much to be proud of, but there is always more on the horizon.The theme for this coming year is Light Up Rotary, chosen by RI President, C.K. Huang, member of the Rotary Club of Taipei, Taiwan. Hechose his message based on a quote by the Chinese philosopher, Confucius, who died nearly 2,400 years before Rotary was even founded. Confucius said, “It is better to light a single candle, than to sit and curse the darkness.” Huang feels that many people sit around thinking there is nothing they can do to solve the problems in the world, so why try.But that is certainly not true for Rotarians. Huang says that together, we light up the world. Huang suggests that Rotary Clubs examine our strengths and the needs in our community and world when determining how we are going to light up Rotary in the coming year. The sessions I participated in at the Convention reiterated Huang’s theme over and over again. In my opinion, Richardson East Rotary is a group of hard-working, dedicated individuals already committed to service, both in the community and world-wide. In considering some goals for this year, I considered the messages resounding from the stage in Sydney. One of the main themes was membership growth and retention. Our current membership world-wide for the last ten years has remained stagnant at around 1.2 million. It is important for the success of Rotary to grow in numbers if it is to continue to be a powerful avenue for service in the future. One challenge I want to address with our club this year is to think outside the box in order to discover some new ways to attract members. As part of this goal, I would like for us to develop a consistent message when we tell someone what Rotary is. I learned at one session that for every ten people in the world, 4 have never heard of Rotary, 4 have heard of it in name only, and only 2 have some familiarity with Rotary. I have found in my own personal experiences with people that very few really know what Rotary is and does. In an effort to help our club members communicate the Rotary message effectively, I already have a date on our calendar for us to develop our own elevator speeches when it comes to telling people what Rotary is all about. I believe that if we continue to light up Rotary by attracting new members, we can ensure Rotary’s continued positive impact on the world.Another goal I have is that we continue our efforts with clean water, but particularly with regards to sanitation efforts. We take clean water for granted, but when one considers the serious health implications related to contaminated water, it is clear that work in the area of sanitation must continue. Thanks to our own Rotarian, Woody Alexander, for his work on the grant for the toilet blocks in the school in India. (Let’s give Woody a/another round of applause for his efforts.)The necessity of this was brought to light by one of the speakers at the conference, Jack Sim. In 2001, he founded the World Toilet Organization, and this year, the United Nations voted to make World Toilet Day on November 19. Of Course, as Sim pointed out, people don’t want to talk about toilets, and with good reason. Sim pointed out in his speech that when Rotarians do water and sanitation projects, the majority focus on clean water. But you can’t have clean water if sanitation issues are not improved. You can’t improve the quality of life and health if people are sick and dying from contaminated water because of lack of sanitation. According to Sim, you can achieve anything if you don’t mind who gets the credit. How true for Rotarians!Let’s light up Rotary by continuing to raise awareness in this area.A third goal I have this year is to promote our club by looking around us in our own community and honoring those volunteers who may not be as well-known as some of the pillars of our community. There are so many people who do good works on a daily basis without recognition, and I think awarding them with a Paul Harris fellow would provide them with an honor long overdue and well deserved. As such, I would like to use one of our meetings in the spring to recognize these volunteers. A committee to help uncover those individuals will soon be established. This will be another opportunity for us to spread a positive message about who we are and what we do and will definitely “light up Rotary” in our Richardson community. In closing, I would like to thank Bill Walker and the previous Board for all of its many accomplishments, both in our community and world-wide. I hope that I can continue that positive spirit as our new board exemplifies the theme of lighting up Rotary. I look forward to working with this strong team of dedicated Rotarians. Thank you very much for the honor to serve you as President of Richardson East Rotary.