Reflections on Rotary in Networker 2012/26 Article
An article headed "Celebrating 108 years of Rotary" in the Networker contained some thought provoking reflections by the author on the evolution of Rotary and the club environment. The reader is referred to the full article but here below are some nice extracts to ponder....
There is another aspect of Rotary Awareness that we often do not think about and that is the way in which our club reflects its Rotary values and how those values and traditions came about. For clubs that have been chartered a relatively short time, many members joined the club because the club from the outset had an emphasis or priority that attracted the member in the first place.
For longer established clubs, many aspects of the way things are done and the club’s priorities are lost in time. How many times do we hear “that’s the way we always do it”? Often that is not a bad reason because it defines what was, and probably still is, important to the club. As Club Historian in my Club, I’ve done more than my fair share of delving into musty documents and old bulletins to gain some appreciation of what makes us tick. Sometimes it takes a really significant anniversary to put it all into perspective.
Of course we do have a very significant anniversary this month – Rotary International celebrates its 108th birthday on 23rd February.
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Whilst the black and white photos of the charter nights seemed to portray a very different world, and indeed it was, it also was a grand reminder of the history of achievement of both clubs.
But those old photos also tell us something else. 2013 is very different to 1953 or 1963. The differences the photos reveal – the “de rigeur” of hats for men, heavy suits and dark and gloomy meeting rooms – also remind us that the world was indeed a different place. Most noticeable is the absence of women, not just at meetings but in many of the other activities.
All clubs have moved on. The style of dress at most meetings is much less formal, even on formal occasions, and interpersonal relations are usually conducted on a much less formal basis.
But think of the changes in technology and communications, it is almost another world! Focus was necessarily more local and of course this is still important. But we are now doing important things on a more national and international stage. Back in those days there was no ROMAC, RAWCS, Australian Rotary Health, Interplast, RYLA or many of the familiar programs of The Rotary Foundation.
The community links we once enjoyed have changed. Most clubs had as a member the Town Clerk, the City Engineer, a Bank Manager, the local News Agent. Local Councils have now been subsumed into larger councils and often the executives prefer not to favour one club over another and join none. As an example, my own club (Hawthorn) is in the City of Boroondara as are 9 other Rotary clubs including one that is part of another District. Bank Managers these days come and go, seemingly without an opportunity to even unpack and many local business people do not seem to have the option of taking time out from their business.
A major change that has occurred, particularly in metropolitan clubs, is that members are increasingly joining clubs based on their residential location rather than their work location. Indeed areas that were once focussed on factories and manufacturing industry are fast becoming residential. The time and day that a club meets also is really important to many members. For many clubs this means that the model on which the club was chartered might no longer be relevant or appropriate.
Many clubs have already made significant changes to their meeting time. Increasingly clubs that originally met at lunch time have transitioned to evening clubs or sunrise clubs. As an aside, Rotary International discourages the use of terms like lunch or breakfast clubs because the meeting should be more about business or content rather than having a meal as a priority – as enjoyable as that may be.
Even with all these changes, most clubs will still have strong links to some of the earlier priorities for the club and these will rightly be appropriate while ever a need exists. Those links should be strengthened and embraced.
On the flip side, all members need to ask themselves if their club is relevant to the community it now serves. If it’s not then we have to look at how we make it so. There is a lot of debate about meeting procedure and while some of the things some clubs do may not seem to be relevant to a prospective member I suspect they are not the issue that decides whether a prospective member joins or not. If a club appears to be looking back rather than ahead, that will be relevant in making a decision.