Rotary District 5370 District Governor Visit

On Tuesday our club received a visit from our District Governor, Laura Morie. She spoke to us about the roles of rotarians in society today, and how those roles are changing. She spoke of how the numbers of people living in abject poverty world wide are dropping, but there is still a lot of room for rotarians to give a hand up to others. She also spoke of how volunteering is the ultimate from of democracy where we get to vote every day on what type of community we want to have.

She encouraged us to think about what types of volunteer activities we take part in that would be a good fit for Rotary. She spoke of how the membership in our adult rotary clubs has been stagnant for many years now but the membership of Interact and Rotaract clubs has risen substantially. The number of these clubs now exceeds the number of Rotary clubs in our district. She encouraged us to continue to promote and sponsor these clubs for younger members as they are our base for future members. She also noted that rotary has done a lot of work in the last few years to remove some barriers to membership and hopefully this will help us to build our clubs in the future.

Rotary is known as one of the best charitable organisations around, in that over ninety eight percent of funds donated, actually reach the people in need. Our premiere project, polio eradication, is nearing its goal of eliminating wild polio, which will most likely be reached within the next year. When this occurs, we will be leaving behind a legacy of health, hygiene and infectious disease tracking that will carry on for many years to come.