Rotary International 2018-2019 Presidential Theme
Be the Inspiration
District governors-elect got their first look at the 2018-19 presidential theme, Be the Inspiration, at the International Assembly, the annual training event held in San Diego in January. RI President-elect Barry Rassin urged the audience to build a stronger organization by inspiring young people and by spreading the word in their communities about the work Rotary does. “I will ask you to inspire with your words and with your deeds,” he said, “doing what we need to do today to build a Rotary that will be stronger tomorrow, stronger when we leave it than it was when we came.”
One source of inspiration, Rassin said, has been Rotary’s work to eradicate polio. He described the incredible progress made in the past three decades: In 1988, an estimated 350,000 people were paralyzed by the wild poliovirus; in 2017, just 22 cases were reported. “We are at an incredibly exciting time for polio eradication,” he said, “a point at which each new case of polio could very well be the last.”