We were pleased to welcome, albeit in unique format, District Governor Dave Hamilton, who was introduced by Assistant DG John Bathurst … who did so at justifiable length, especially as we were also introduced to Dave’s wife, who gloried under the soubriquet ‘Galaxy’, is herself next year’s President of the Sunshine Coast Club, and apparently painted away at home, unseen by the meeting, until introduced by her husband, at which time we found that she really was painting all the while! In fact, quite a few of us had already met Dave in the days when we could meet and greet over fish, chips and wine … may those days soon return!
Recently, when returning home from a conference, Dave and his wife found themselves in an airport departure lounge, and sitting there the current Rotary International President, Holger Knaack, whom he described as a ‘cool-looking guy’. Dave took the opportunity to have a brief chat (one doesn’t want to be too liberal in intruding upon another’s privacy) and followed a brief description with an excerpt from a video recorded by Holger: and plainly he is actually a ‘cool’ guy! Holger, he said, reiterated that the past commitment to the growth of Rotary by its leadership team has failed, this in large part because there has been insufficient emphasis on the encouragement of existing members to fully engage, and a failure to strengthen the membership for the future, perhaps by way of not centralizing to a sufficient degree for concentrated effort. But, and this seems clear, when the efforts are collectively exerted, they work … witness PolioPlus.
Continuing, Dave emphasized that, as a complete enterprise, Rotary is in wonderful shape; it is financially strong and and still growing in numbers every year. But it is now established that the Asian membership is larger than that of North America, a fact which actually reflects the reality of the world’s demographics and the dramatic effect of a rapidly ageing U.S. population. Holger had made the point to him that at a recent meeting, a leadership group had been addressed by the President of Kodak, a giant in the photographic world in the last century, but which is now in bankruptcy because of a corporate belief that the company would get into other fields as time passed and that it was too dominant to fail; however, the pace of digital changes was so rapid that it easily outpaced Kodak’s ability to accommodate itself to the profound changes in technology and popular culture. The lesson is radical in its simplicity: Rotary, aware of this profound change in its weltanshauung, has to be nimble to thrive in this febrile world.
The consequent need for flexibility and manoeuvrability can in part be alleviated by creating new Club formats, examples of which are ‘Passport’, Corporate, ‘Cause-based’ and ‘Alumni’ clubs, which, because of technology (vide, what we were using for this meeting!) can have as few as 8 members and as many as 20, and simply do not need to meet in a traditional setting and munch through lunch. Our DG takes the reasonable view that 5040 is soundly based and historically strong, in large part because of the efforts of members such as Leigh and Hans, who fortuitously (sic) were with us for this meeting. The centre of the year is of course the District Conference, which this year is slated for Terrace during the May long weekend. Necessarily, the very holding of the event is in some peril because of the Pandemic, but at present it is planned to closely liase with the Nisga’a peoples and utilize the consequent ready access to the Nass Valley to as great a degree as is practical.
A forceful talk ended with the aphorism “It’s Time To Make A Change” … but more specifically “What would I do differently if I were to start a Rotary Club today?” I anticipate that President Grant will pose that question to some unsuspecting member at some future meeting.