We were very pleased to welcome our District Governor, Lyn Stroshin. This was by no means her first visit to our Club, and we were given the opportunity to examine the ideas that the ‘new broom’ team intends to bring to District 5040. We began with a well-attended Board meeting at which some new approaches were mooted, an example of which was the designation of a “Club of the Week” but an even more cogent idea is that the emphasis on Youth development would re-introduce one of the fundamental tenets of Rotary, that being the emphasis on Rotary being a forum for business development and discussions. It would appear that Rotary International has noticed that while most clubs struggle to bring in new recruits, ‘business clubs’ (BNI, for example) have unfulfillable waiting lists.
Lunch itself, many noticed, was unusually well-attended – we even ran out of food! The conversation was, as usual, lively, but in this instance gained some frisson because of the attendance of proposed new, and younger, members. Lyn began her address appropriately early and based her talk on this year’s theme, “Rotary Serving Humanity”. This being the 100th birthday of the Rotary Foundation, she appropriately lauded the integrity and profound influence of the Foundation, and noted that Ban-Ki-Moon and Bill Gates attended the Rotary Conference, both of whose attendance drew attention to the growth of philanthropic foundations and their profound importance in the alleviation of poverty and contribution to third world’s welfare.
Lyn herself talked about the profound effect that her service in the field, in both Uganda and Ethiopia, had upon her belief in the ultimate goodness of people and their enormous need for basic needs, like access to fresh water and the understanding of basic health issues, that we in the developed world take for granted. Of course, in the latter respect, Rotary has much for which to be proud, this being the 31st anniversary of Polio-Plus : World Polio Day is coming up and, one hopes, this day will be suitably acknowledged. However, ‘suitably’ also implies an avoidance of complacency, for even in Nigeria, whose freedom from polio earlier this year was celebrated, has now noted three new cases. There is still a struggle to face, not only because of some bizarre religious beliefs, but also from delivery problems that arise from the political chaos that embraces so large a proportion of the less-developed world.In specific terms Lyn referred to the scourge of fistula-phobia, a social phenomenon within the poorer levels in Ethiopian society. It condemns young girls to the state of social pariahs when relatively ordinary medical treatment can completely eliminate this currently devastating problem. There was no doubt left in the audience’s minds that Lyn’s experience in this benighted part of the world left her with a more realistic appreciation of the social/personal component in third-world health, both physical and intellectual.
This important address concluded happily with the induction of two new members, Richard Cui and Jake Wong (even then, we would have liked the third new member to have made the day complete with his induction, but this ceremony will have to wait for a week or two.)
We hope that Lyn’s visit will be repeated: it looks as though the new broom will do some sweeping.
