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DG Bernie's Weekly
Message
SPREADING
THE POWER OF ROTARY
The following are
excerpts from my Opening Address at the 2007 District Conference
held in Canberra last weekend for your information and as a member
of the Rotary Family.
2 weeks ago, we celebrated Rotary's birthday
and in terms of cricket scores, Rotary has been at the wicket for
102 years and is still not out. Since the team went into bat
on 23rd February 1905 with that great allrounder, Paul
Harris as Opener, some determined efforts have been made to dismiss
this strong batting side but the verdict from the umpires has been
the same. But we can't afford to be over-confident. We have a
great international team but the opposition has plenty of top
bowlers in reserve; hunger, thirst, illiteracy, poverty, polio,
malaria as well as hatred, fear, ignorance and many others, all
capable of bowling some curly ones to the Rotarian at the
crease.
Meanwhile, our duty to the team is to score
as well as we can while we are batting; because the trophy for this
match is the welfare of mankind, and we can't afford to lose that.
We must continue to LEAD THE WAY.
However, our 102nd anniversary
should not be a time for glorifying the past so much as for facing
the future. Certainly, we can look back at Rotary's history,
but, like all history, it contains many lessons for the future and
records the achievements of great Rotarians to inspire us. But it is
the past and much of what has gone on before has no relevance today
and less of it will be relevant to the needs of
tomorrow.
Rotary has changed, is changing and will
continue to change. It must continue to evolve and its future
development will be largely conditioned by the changing world in
which it serves. It is not unnatural to resist change. For
this reason we must be ever alert to the danger of resisting for the
sake of preserving what is not necessarily good but merely
comfortable and familiar.
We cannot afford to remain static in a
dynamic society or Rotary will wither away or sink into obscurity
having outlived its usefulness by allowing itself to be shackled by
conventions and rules that are no longer relevant and by inactivity
of the membership.
Sometimes we might ask ourselves why are we
Rotarians, what made us join Rotary and the answers are usually
similar. We need to become dreamers to believe we can make a
difference. Rotarians are known for being, not only Dreamers, but
also Doers.
Dreams begin the process for change and
improvement, and this brings to mind what I call the two word
Rotarian.
Imagine that the Dreamer says "What if!" and
this is usually followed by the Practitioner who says "How about"
and, before you know it, a project is underway.
Imagine, back in 1985, a Dreamer would have
said to the question of doing something globally rather than on a
local stage, "let's eliminate a worldwide disease" and the Practical
Rotarian would have followed by "How about we tackle Polio. It is a
crippling disease that is rife in under-developed countries. With
our association with the UN we can involve the World Health
Organisation & we have contacts"...
We have almost won the fight against polio
and kept our promise to the Children of the World, all because
someone dreamed and walked in the footsteps of Paul
Harris.
But, in Rotary, very little happens unless
it is filtered by the fellowship machine and this was the impetus
behind Paul Harris and his confreres when they founded
Rotary.
LEAD THE WAY
and Experience the Power of Rotary.
Bernie
Walshe
District Governor
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