eRotaryLondon
Rotary eClub of London Centenary

President Jeff

I am looking forward to attending a meeting with you and your members later in the year at 6 York Gate, where I will be pleased to hear of your plans and your progress. In the meantime you may care to read my message which I am giving to the clubs on my official visit.

Part of my role as Governor is to bring you the messages of the RI President. This year we are privileged to have as our international president, Bill Boyd from New Zealand. He is everything that I look for in an international president or any other Rotary leader for that matter. I have had the pleasure of meeting him and of being in his company on a number of occasions. He is, what we all our, an ordinary Rotarian, and with Bill there is no suggestion of self-importance.

Let me quote from a speech that he made at the RI Assembly held last February in San Diego where I and the other 528 District Governors Elect from all across the Rotary world went to be trained. These words, which I was delighted to hear, reflect my own position on Rotary membership and the various offices and it captures Bill's character.

"Being a Rotary leader means putting the clubs and Rotarians first. It means recognizing that, in Rotary, no member is ever any more important than any other member. Some of us have greater responsibility, but no one has greater value. Each club member, club president, district governor, and director - and each RI president - is equally part of Rotary and equally part of Rotary's future."

I fully concur with this view.

Bill believes in continuity and developing Rotary rather than an annual revolution. He has stuck with the previous emphases on Water Management, Health and Hunger, Literacy and The Family of Rotary. I will not go over all these emphases again as I have dealt with them at PETS and at Assembly when many here will have heard them.

I would just like to mention though, the Family of Rotary. This not only relates to Inner Wheel, Rotaract, Interact and the Foundation Alumni, but to our own families. Bill, urges us to include our families as much as possible in the things that we do in Rotary, especially social events.

Peter Offer, the RIBI President, has asked us to support Impact, an organisation offering mobile health care, mainly on the Indian sub-continent; the Wheelchair Foundation which provides wheelchairs for those in desperate need throughout the world; Barnados, the well-known children's charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Support for the latter is about service, rather than fund raising. We are being asked to distribute leaflets in our community to raise awareness of cancer detection and hopefully ensure earlier treatment and greater success. In short, we are being asked to help save lives.

These are essentially menus from which clubs can choose, but I would hope that every club could find fifty pounds, yes just fifty pounds, to donate to the Wheelchair Foundation to provide a new wheelchair to someone in desperate need. There is an excellent DVD on the work of the Wheelchair Foundation which has been sent to all clubs, as I understand it, and if you have not yet seen it, we will be showing it at the Eastbourne Conference.

In addition to the above, I am asking for support for HEMS, the London Air Ambulance, by assisting them with publicity and fund raising rather than fund raising ourselves. I would not stop any club, though, that wanted to make a financial donation from so doing.. Many people believe that Richard Branson and Virigin pay for the service but whilst they make a significant contribution, there is still a very large sum of money to be raised.

This Rotary year, RI President Bill Boyd has asked us to Lead the Way. This is a very easily remembered and clear message. Many of us are being called on to lead this year, but we must exercise this leadership with care. We can only achieve our goals through others and we can only encourage them if we share our dreams and inspire them with our vision.

I make no apology for saying that we need new members if we are to continue the magnificent work that Rotary does. My goal is that we will have 1800 members in the District by 30th June, 2007. I am pleased to say that there is already evidence that the decline in membership has turned around for the great work that Rotary does can only be sustained if we attract new members. You will note that I said attract new members rather than recruit new members. We need to ensure that our clubs are attractive with interesting programmes and challenges and real friendship so that we enjoy Rotary. If we don't enjoy it, why are we members?

It is a great thing of itself to be able to help others so let us give service joyfully and with a glad heart. Remember, too, that Paul Harris founded Rotary because he was seeking the friendship that he thought was missing from the big city and that friendship or fellowship as we call it is the cornerstone on which all our works are founded. We especially need to look at what we do to see if it is still relevant to the younger business and professional people who will be the future of Rotary and if it isn't we should have the courage to change.

I am pleased to be able to tell you that after many years of being asked what RIBI is doing to promote Rotary, I can tell you that a major new marketing and PR initiative is underway. This should raise the profile of Rotary and hopefully when we are better known make it easier to get new members, because that is its main purpose. But a word of caution, this initiative of itself will not gain one new member. It still requires us to invite potential members to join.

We also need new clubs for that is from where the main growth in membership has come in recent years. My goal in this respect is to have four new clubs on their way to being chartered by the end of the next Rotary year and I am grateful to those who have volunteered to help with forming them.

Don't let us forget Rotaract. Rotaract has had a very torrid time in recent years. When I was District Rotary Rotaract Chairman we had a thriving organisation with over 500 members. Today, we would be hard-pressed to find 50 across the District. But there are signs that Rotaract is beginning to revive across Britain and Ireland. In Scotland where Rotaract had ceased to exist, new clubs are being formed. Many of our current Rotarians started in Rotaract, not least our Immediate past District Governor Perhaps we can find some more ex Rotaract members and get them to join our clubs. So in order to give us a good source of membership for the future, let us commit to reviving Rotaract and let us remember that it is Rotary that forms new Rotaract clubs, not Rotaract themselves.

I am also have a goal of starting four new Interact clubs and Arthur Chapman, the District Interact, is confident of being able to do this. But nobody can do this on his or her own. It requires the commitment, dedication and effort of the many not the few, if we are to succeed.

I liked a quote that Immediate Past RIBI President Mike Webb often used last year. It comes from an inscription that he saw over a doorway in Bangladesh. It said:

"There is no limit to what a man can achieve, if he doesn't mind who gets the credit".

This obviously applies to both genders. We should not seek credit for ourselves, only for Rotary.

Above all I want us to believe in ourselves. For too long I think we have been rather downcast and somewhat dispirited because of the difficulty with recruitment. We have asked what is wrong with Rotary. Well let me say that I think that fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with Rotary. The world is a better place because of Rotary and we should be proud of being Rotarians.

Let me now mention some important events.

• In September we will be welcoming to the District a Group Study Exchange team from District 7680, North Carolina, USA. I hope that you will consider hosting members of the team, inviting them to your meetings and organising a vocational visit or some other part of their programme. More details will be coming to you from Mike Hodge. We are also looking for team members to return to North Carolina in March and April next year. So if you know of potential team members, please let Mike Hodge know.
• 19th to 22nd October, 2007 we will be at Eastbourne for our conference. We aim to make it an interesting and enjoyable conference. Please look out for the flyers that will be sent out shortly and the registration forms that will be included in forthcoming magazine and also given to your president.
• There will be a Rotary Float in the Lord Mayor's Show. It will not be a District float but a joint venture between RIBI and the Institute of Cancer Research, with possible backing from the Rotary Club of Tower Hamlets who may ask other clubs if they want to support this. We will need walkers on the day, so please be prepared to volunteer. The show takes place this year 11th November.
• In January we will again be taking part in the New Year's Day Parade. This is a great fun event and we are not restricted as to the numbers who can take part, so if you can rouse yourselves from the festivities of the night before, do think about joining us.
• Then there is Youth Makes Music. The concert will be held 19th March, 2007. Please look out for young persons who have not previously had the opportunity to appear on an international concert platform and submit audition tapes on their behalf. And of course we want to see you there because we have 1921 seats to fill.

Finally may I make an appeal for more Rotarians to offer themselves for service at club and District level. We need new blood. If anyone has any questions or comments, please send them to me at dg at rotaryinlondon.org I wish the club every success in this Rotary year.

Clive