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As the Rotary year comes to a close today, and a new Rotary year starts tomorrow, I think it is appropriate to quote the words of Rotary founder Paul Harris, who said back in the ‘30’s:
“If Rotary is to realize its proper destiny, it must be evolutionary at all times, revolutionary on occasion.”
This is a call – from 80 years ago – to abandon the “we’ve always done it that way” approach, and be open to new ideas – ideas in how we conduct our meetings, perform our humanitarian projects, and engage with our communities. Our district is a leader and needs to continue to lead in innovative approaches to all that we do in Rotary.
We can and must do this without sacrificing our core values, which I’ve been stressing over the past year. Those core values are:
- FELLOWSHIP. However we structure our meetings, we must continue to emphasize the importance of the fellowship of Rotary in achieving our objectives and promoting our other core values. Fellowship leads to engagement and engagement redoubles fellowship. Fellowship is what makes our organization unique. There are many ways to serve humanity, but none I know of combines service to humanity with the personal growth that Rotary fellowship provides to its members.
- LEADERSHIP. We are an organization bringing together leaders to exchange ideas and take action to better our communities. But we are an organization that develops leaders at all levels; hence the annual change in leadership that we are seeing now and see every year on July 1.
- INTEGRITY. We not only recite the Four Way Test – we do our best to live it. We honor our commitments (witness our 30-year effort to rid the world of polio, at a cost that is probably beyond what anyone foresaw in 1985). We promote ethics in our businesses and our daily lives. We promote it to our young people in the hopes of creating a new generation of ethical leaders.
- DIVERSITY. We bring a multitude of perspectives to any issue, through the diversity of our professions, ethnic and religious/philosophical backgrounds and perspectives, and experiences. We are a worldwide fellowship, embracing members from every corner of the globe. We see that diversity in our annual international conventions. (If you haven’t been to at least one yet – do it!)
- SERVICE: What I like to call the “first among equals.” The stated “Object of Rotary” is to “encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise.”
We should never compromise these values in the interests of increasing the numbers of our members, and I don’t believe we have to. Many younger people share our values and are looking for the opportunity to serve their communities shoulder to shoulder with seasoned Rotarians, to learn from them and to develop their own leadership skills. We are working hard to bring them in and keep them engaged.
Each year the RI president announces the year’s theme. This year president Gary urged us to “light up Rotary.” Next year President Ravi and DG Tim will inspire us to “be a gift to the world.” I will take as my final thought the theme of President John Kenny in 2009-2010, the year I served as president of my club – “The Future of Rotary is in Your Hands.” The future of Rotary is indeed in ALL of our hands. Let us continue to work together to insure that Rotary will survive, thrive, light up the world and be a gift to the world for generations to come!
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