"I’m constantly surprised by how little impact we as
Rotarians make on the consciousness of the general population of the UK. By
which I don’t mean that we don’t do anything for them, it’s more how unaware
they are of what we do to make the world a better place and more importantly
why they should come and help us do so.
Our theme for this year is Engage Rotary, Change Lives.
Take “Engage” – if we look up that word in the thesaurus we find almost 30
synonyms – words like Encounter, Attract, Join, Involve, Absorb, Engross,
Retain – actually that’s not a bad set of words to use as a strategy for our
Membership. So let’s do those things –
let’s use every encounter we
have as Rotarians as an opportunity to explain what we do and to attract new
members to Rotary and once they’ve joined let’s involve them, and absorb them
into the framework of our clubs, so they’re engrossed in what we do and we retain
them.
If we do all those things we won’t have a problem with
Changing Lives – we’ll change their lives and our lives for the better and
we’ll all be able to change the lives of the communities impacted by our
Service for the better. And we may have
less of a problem with people knowing what we do – if there’s more of us,
that’s more of us to spread the word.
Sounds devastatingly simple, but I know that the reality isn’t quite like
that – for a start we’ve got to get our members to Engage with the idea that
that’s what we need to do. And in some
clubs that’ll be easier than others. And
it will only happen if we all use our collective will to make it so. At our District Assembly I felt a real buzz
about the place, a gathering of people who wanted to be part of making our
District a better place to be a Rotarian, a more dynamic place to be a
Rotarian, a more satisfying place to be a Rotarian.
Ten years ago my club held a celebration of its silver
jubilee and we made a video including remarks from founder members of the club
where they stressed the importance and vitality of Rotary fellowship. Resorting to my thesaurus again and looking
up Fellowship I find words like camaraderie, partnership, solidarity,
cooperation and yes, that’s what we need – a sense of shared responsibility for
the well-being of our society – to do Good in the World. And I’m not going to miss this opportunity to
trumpet the cause of our Rotary Foundation – our charity. We’ve come a long way in this District in the
last few years, we have every right to be very proud of our achievements for
our Foundation – we’re approaching the gold standard – the $100 a member every
year, let’s keep that going, and let’s make use of it in supporting our
projects.
I’d like to draw towards a close now, with a plea to all
of you to help me to achieve 100% participation from the Rotarians in the
District for our Pounds for Polio project which runs from Monday, yes July 1,
until 24 October, World Polio Day. Why
is this important right now? It’s
important that we continue our efforts to complete the Endgame because we have
had warnings again this year of what happens if we don’t finish the job. Outbreaks in Kenya & Somalia which have
led to the need to carry out emergency vaccinations of more than 1 million
children should serve as a grave reminder of the ongoing need. Yes, I know we’ve been at it for years, yes I
know people are tired of the continued need, but in my view we need to adapt
the words of Magnus Magnusson – We’ve started so We’ll finish. Just to remind you, our objective is to raise
£100 for each Rotarian in the District in the next 115 days, just a £1 a day
each – not a lot to each of us, but capable of an immense Change in the Lives
of others.
And a quick sneaky advert for District Conference 2014 –
Torquay March 21st-23rd.
I’m very proud of the exceptional line-up of speakers we’ve already got
for you - Arsenal & Scotland goalkeeping legend Bob Wilson, who’ll not only
be talking about football but also his charity, the Willow Foundation which
makes things happen for terminally ill young adults; transplant games medal
winner Richard Burbedge and Paralympic gold medal rower Naomi Riches who’ll
both be telling us what it’s like to grow up being different and to overcome
those disadvantages. And Ben Mee who’s
taken a broken down zoo & built it up during a time of personal tragedy –
yes it was him, not Matt Damon that Bought a Zoo. We also have Lady Carnarvon on what it’s like
living in Downton Abbey and how the temporary hospital storylines were
factually based on the earlier Lady Carnarvon.
Not to mention Hudson river plane crash survivor Larry Snodgrass and Ray
Burman on surviving 35 years in the police – make sure you put the date in your
diary and come – better still, make sure you bring along someone from your club
who’s never been to a District Conference and show them why they need to be
there – after all, if it hadn’t been for District Conference I may never have
joined!
