Reflection on last week's meeting - 20 July 2016

 

 

 

Past President Bhuvan Unhelkar truly is a global citizen with rich experiences and an interesting and very valuable perspective on the Rotary family around the world.

 

Bhuvan is not only an outstanding educator and communicator, but knows how to prepare presentations worthy of attention.Perhaps the most powerful thing though was what he had to say to accompany the presentation – truly inspiring Bhuvan!Best known to us as our ‘always happy’ Past President, Bhuvan truly is a man of the world as his presentation demonstrated. 

 

His Rotary experiences overseas are rich and varied.  From being part of a team going into India to distribute vaccines to End Polio, to makeup meetings in Malaysia and working with children of people in prison in Brazil Bhuvan has seen a lot of ‘Rotary in action’.  These experiences with Rotary go a long way to giving Bhyvan a very special perspective, of what it means to be a member of the Rotary family internationally.

Being a bit of a traditionalist himself, Bhuvan enjoys the many hallmarks that make attending a Rotary meeting in any part of the world feel familiar. Despite our cultural, language and historical differences our common ground is very unifying wherever you go on the planet it would seem.  It would also seem that Bhuvan is doing all he can to meet as many of the 1.2 members of Rotary worldwide.

 

Bhuvan gave us a powerful analogy to consider when talking about Rotary – a tree!  Each section holding an important Rotary value and symbolic meaning:

Leaves – our diversity

Branches – our fellowship

Trunk – our integrity

Roots – our service

 

We’ve become very accustomed to having Bhuvan around these past few months and when he leaves to go back to Florida his presence and energy will be sincerely missed.  The one thing we know though, wherever he is on the planet, he will consistently give of his best in the service of others.

Russell perhaps best summed up what the audience felt at the end of the presentation.  Bhuvan Unhelkar is an extraordinary Rotarian and a truly extraordinary man.  With so much to share and generously to give – Bhuvan epitomizes what it means to be a Rotarian.