DG's observations on the Breadth of Rotary

President Jill Forsyth of the Rotary Club of Kew in her club bulletin this week referred to the “opportunities which conferences provide to socialise with other Clubs and to help us all see the bigger picture of Rotary and to enjoy the ongoing successes of a seemingly unending number of people with boundless energy and the capacity to do good in the world”.

Our recent District Conference certainly was an opportunity to see the bigger picture of Rotary and to demonstrate how all the elements of Rotary can connect to enable efforts of individual members to translate into something quite special.

Such outcomes are demonstrated every day in Rotary and the past few weeks have provided us with many great examples of how Rotary connects to achieve these outcomes.

In this Rotary Literacy Month the simple concept of coordinating the collection of Children’s books at the District Conference resulted in more than 1900 books being donated to the Aboriginal Literacy Foundation to make a real difference in the lives of so many children. The idea of course was simple but it required the drive of our District Literacy Chair, Bronwen Scarffe to devise and promote the program and individual Rotarians to embrace the concept and donate books.

Over the weekend after the Conference, Lynda and I had the opportunity to visit the Rypen camp to witness the value of imbuing young people with skills and insights into their personal development. For at least some of the participants the opportunity that Rotary provided for them to attend Rypen will probably be the positive fork in the road that will make a lifetime of difference to those young individuals. This successful formula is repeated twice a year in our District and around the country through the efforts of Rotary and Rotarians, whether they be camp hosts or through their contribution to get participants to and from the camp.

The proposal to participate as a District in the forthcoming Rotary Peace Forum in Hiroshima as a tangible way of connecting with our Rotary theme of “Peace Through Service” has certainly resonated with clubs as an opportunity to assist Rotary’s vision for a better world. There were 55 submissions made through 29 clubs for selection to be part of the District Team that will attend the Forum to be staged from 17-19 May. Many thoughtful and powerful essays were submitted making it a real challenge for the selection committee to identify those who would be financially assisted by our District to attend. I’m delighted that Sponsor clubs have also decided to assist to fund reserve candidates and so we will actually send a team of 12 together with our two Conveners, International Peace Centres Committee member Bob Fels and former Peace fellow Tania Miletic (who spoke at our conference). The essays will be consolidated along with reports on the forum to provide an effective publication that can be shared with all Rotarians.

People join Rotary in the first instance for many different reasons. I believe they become Rotarians when they understand the real difference that they can make by leveraging what they can achieve personally through Rotary to make a real difference. Although the club is the member of Rotary International it is the fellowship and mutual support that clubs provide to create the opportunities for individual members to provide “Service Above Self”. Increasingly members are working in cluster activities and seeing the value that we deliver by working together to achieve even more significant outcomes from our Rotary service. At a District level we can do even more as we saw with our Literacy project.

One of the outcomes of District Conferences and International Conventions is that we can see even more opportunities for service and for fellowship. We learn from each other and we certainly see the bigger picture. Every Conference seeks to build on previous Conferences and indeed from Conferences and Rotary activities in other Districts. District Governors are happy to share the things that work for their Districts with other Districts. As a pilot district for The Rotary Foundation’s Future Vision program, we have been pleased to share our experiences and systems that have been developed in our District with all the other Australian Districts but also with our new friends in District 1080 in the UK, with whom we have a special connection based on our recent Group Study Exchange. But it is not just a one way street. District Governor Marie Dorrington from D9500 (who incidentally staged her District’s Conference in Bendigo while we were in Albury) very kindly but willingly shared with us the ideas that she had for a remembrance and reflection segment at the recent Zone Institute. We accepted those ideas with thanks and adapted them for what I think was a most respectful and memorable part of our District Conference.

Those of you who attended the District Assembly last year will remember that we were privileged to have an address from John Minhinick now President of RIBI (Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland) who subsequently shared with us their program and strategy for revitalising Rotary. Their program is very much based on this idea of connecting Rotary. Their term for this program is “joined-up Rotary”, which is all about encouraging district and club committees to realise that for any activity/project it's very likely that more than one committee should be involved for maximum success and maximum benefit to Rotary. Sometimes Rotary through its best intentions does confuse and work against the optimal outcome. Our structures based on the five Avenues of Service, The Rotary Foundation, Membership and numerous sub-committees can lead to a so called “silo” approaches to what we are trying to achieve. Of course that structure is very effective for identifying goals and actions but it is always paramount that we see the bigger picture for the best outcome.

Our forthcoming Rotarians at Work Day (or Rotarians and Friends at Work as it is being promoted nationally) is very much about connecting Rotary clubs and Rotarians so that the public can see the bigger picture of Rotary. Many of the activities are being conducted on a cluster wide basis for maximum effect. In communities where there is only one Rotary club there are some really special programs that are very much about engaging the community. I am really impressed by the way that many clubs and clusters have put in a huge effort to identify and implement their proposed projects and programs.

I would like to conclude by saying something more about our recent Group Study Exchange. Whilst DGE Ross and DGN Murray are looking to continue a GSE program, the exchange this year marks the official conclusion of one the mainstays of Rotary as we have known it, since 1965. We can debate whether the program was an effective way to utilise Foundation funds but we can say that it certainly gave Rotarians a demonstrable way to see the bigger picture and it certainly connected Rotarians both with the exchange district but also within our District. We said our formal farewells to the team from D1080 on 22 March and we will miss them. All who met them and especially those who hosted them enjoyed their company and their willingness to participate; and it works both ways. DG Trevor Sayer from D1080 said on the return of his team “I believe the GSE has been a great success and I am so pleased we partnered with you for this last formal time in Rotary history”.

Yes Rotary is amazing and the more we allow ourselves to work at seeing the bigger picture and the more we connect through Rotary the more amazing it becomes.

By Dennis Shore reprinted from The Networker