Our District, Our Club
Rotary International
President Ray Klinginsmith has given us a powerful theme for Rotary Year 2010-2011: Building Communities – Bridging Continents. I see this theme as a call to action. I challenge clubs to take on projects that are also in President Ray’s words, “bigger, better, and bolder.”
In looking at very successful businesses, organizations, schools, and government agencies, it is individuals who make the difference. Not governing boards, not policy manuals, not ad campaigns. The same is true for Rotary and Rotary clubs.
It was a single Rotarian, Tom Henderson of the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard in Cornwall, England who convinced his club to start Shelter Box, an international disaster relief charity that delivers emergency shelter, warmth and dignity to people affected by disaster worldwide. In January 2001, the first consignment of 143 boxes was sent to earthquake victims in Gujarat, India. Nine and one-half years later years later Shelter Box has worked on every continent, responding to earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, typhoons, hurricanes, volcanoes and conflicts. As of today, over 79,224 boxes have been delivered.
It was a single Rotarian who gave us the Four-Way Test, a 24 word code of conduct to help us guide our decisions. It was not a product of a Rotary committee in Evanston. In 1932 in response to a failing business during the depression, Herb Taylor drafted this personal code of ethics to guide his decisions. Later he called on his department heads to do the same and to apply the test in their departments to all dealings with employees, customers, dealers, and suppliers. It turned the company around. In 1943 the RI Board voted to officially adopt Herb’s Four-Way Test, which has become a code recited weekly by Rotary clubs the world over.
In 1992 Dr. Angelo Capozzi, in collaboration with the Rotary Club of San Francisco, facilitated a surgical program in La Serena, Chile, to treat children with the cleft lip and cleft palate anomalies. Rotaplast was formed that year and to date over 150 missions have served over 10,000 children in 18 countries. Clubs in District 5300 have pledged to host a mission in 2011. Once again it was an individual who made a significant difference.
It was one of our own Rotarians who was instrumental in the admission of women into Rotary and other business service organizations. In 1987-88 Dr. Sylvia Whitlock served as the first female president of a Rotary club in the world. Previously she and a handful of other women from the Rotary Club of Duarte rocked the status quo, forcing Rotary International and then the courts to address the discrimination issue. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which in May of 1987 ruled in favor of the lower court decisions which said that Rotary could not discriminate based on race, gender, religion or ethnic origin. We thank you, Sylvia, for your wisdom, perseverance, and willingness to change the system.
With the above examples in mind, it will most likely be an individual in your club who will initiate a new “bigger, better, bolder” activity or take a current project to “bigger, better, bolder” heights this year. I encourage boards and club membership to support these Rotarians and their ideas and extraordinary efforts to Build Communities – Bridge Continents.
Written by Roger Schulte, District Governor 2010-11(June 15, 2010)
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