This is an edited version of the acceptance speech I gave at my installation as President at our changeover event Wednesday July 1.
"I’d like to thank the club for electing me as President for this year. I regard this as a singular honour and I will do my best to serve the club to the best of my ability. It’s also a particular pleasure to see so many friends – thank you all for being here.
Those of you that use the internet for shopping or booking holidays will have noticed that you generally have to create an account and this leads you into a part of the site called My Amazon, or My E-Bay. So, this evening I’d like to tell you about My Rotary. My Rotary starts when Joan first came along to talk to Elthorne Hillingdon and was subsequently asked to join. At that time I couldn’t quite see why she wanted to, and even less did I want to join her in meeting weekly with a bunch of Rotarians! But time moves on and things change. But why; why did I become a Rotarian?
- There’s the warmth of the welcome. Right from our first encounter, at Brendan (O’Rourke)’s President’s drinks I’ve always felt particularly welcome in this club
- There’s going to District Conference in Cardiff and discovering that this weekly dinner club was rather more than a bit of local fundraising – have to say that watching some of the presentations I’ve seen at District & RI conventions highlighting the extraordinary things that we do as an organisation is humbling – take Alan Wolstencroft’s work in Sierra Leone, to which we contributed last year, or RI President DK Lee’s memories of a mother with a dying child in Africa, for example
- I’ll draw a veil over my first Golf Day of which my memory is arriving back at the clubhouse teeth chattering and shivering all over having sat at the 17th in the freezing cold and drizzle all afternoon! Subsequent ones have been a whole lot better and I’m really looking forward to this year’s on Tuesday 21st July – if any of you can muster another team of three, we’d be really delighted
- There’s the simple things, like Gordon Sadler’s remarks on the video that we did for the silver ball celebrating 25 years of the club when he said that what he valued most from being a Rotarian was the fellowship & friendship
- There’s visiting Tanzania and South Africa on holiday and realising that the developed world needs to help the less fortunate
- There’s the unashamed pride in what Joan (Greening, my wife) achieved as the first lady President of the club (I am, of course, blessed to be the first President of this club to have succeeded their spouse in the role – I have no illusions about how hard an act that is to follow but no doubt that I will get from Joan all the support and strength that she has given me throughout our life together).
So I joined, and was honoured to be inducted by Joan – shortly before we went off to Chicago for the Centenary Convention – with 45,000 of our closest friends.
The closest friends things is what for me epitomises being a Rotarian – doesn’t matter where you are in the world, a local Rotary club will be delighted to have you visit and will share with you the same shade of camaraderie and insults as if you’d know them all your life. I’ve found this personally at clubs we’ve visited together in the US, Bermuda and elsewhere in the UK. Last year I did a 160 mile round trip to Dubai for the evening to attend the nearest Rotary club while I was working in Abu Dhabi – it was, as usual, well worth the trip.
So my Rotary is about belonging, being uplifted, in the company of like-minded friends, trying to be part of making the world we live in a better place and helping those in need. What I want above all from my year as President is that we start to move to a position where this club can continue to support the community and the world for another 30 years. This means that we must focus, above all else, on increasing our membership and on making ourselves attractive and accessible to a new generation of Rotarians.
I’m particularly heartened to see that the BBC seems to have started a subversive campaign to make Rotarians out of 6-10 year olds. Those of you with young children or grandchildren will be familiar with Tronji – the latest TV/game phenomenon for the 6-10 range. From the same stable as the Teletubbies and In the Night Garden it is taking the UK by storm – this year’s Xmas requests will all be Tronji related, you have been warned. What interests me is the parallel between Tronji world and My Rotary. Tronjis are seeking happiness in their world and in Peopleworld. They recruit from Peopleworld to help them in their goal, each using their own skill to help bring happiness about. There are clear moral, but non-denominational messages throughout the programme and a desire to inform. And then it struck me – the company behind this programme must be engaged in a secret putsch to build Rotary membership in the year 2040.
Now wouldn’t it be just typical of Rotary to have such a great idea and keep it a secret? Please don’t keep Rotary a secret – ask your closest friends and relatives to join. Those of you who are here tonight and are not yet Rotarians, we look forward to welcoming you into the Rotary family.
Thanks for listening (or in this case reading!), thanks being a part of this club – I hope you will all continue to be a part of us for a long time to come".
"I’d like to thank the club for electing me as President for this year. I regard this as a singular honour and I will do my best to serve the club to the best of my ability. It’s also a particular pleasure to see so many friends – thank you all for being here.
Those of you that use the internet for shopping or booking holidays will have noticed that you generally have to create an account and this leads you into a part of the site called My Amazon, or My E-Bay. So, this evening I’d like to tell you about My Rotary. My Rotary starts when Joan first came along to talk to Elthorne Hillingdon and was subsequently asked to join. At that time I couldn’t quite see why she wanted to, and even less did I want to join her in meeting weekly with a bunch of Rotarians! But time moves on and things change. But why; why did I become a Rotarian?
- There’s the warmth of the welcome. Right from our first encounter, at Brendan (O’Rourke)’s President’s drinks I’ve always felt particularly welcome in this club
- There’s going to District Conference in Cardiff and discovering that this weekly dinner club was rather more than a bit of local fundraising – have to say that watching some of the presentations I’ve seen at District & RI conventions highlighting the extraordinary things that we do as an organisation is humbling – take Alan Wolstencroft’s work in Sierra Leone, to which we contributed last year, or RI President DK Lee’s memories of a mother with a dying child in Africa, for example
- I’ll draw a veil over my first Golf Day of which my memory is arriving back at the clubhouse teeth chattering and shivering all over having sat at the 17th in the freezing cold and drizzle all afternoon! Subsequent ones have been a whole lot better and I’m really looking forward to this year’s on Tuesday 21st July – if any of you can muster another team of three, we’d be really delighted
- There’s the simple things, like Gordon Sadler’s remarks on the video that we did for the silver ball celebrating 25 years of the club when he said that what he valued most from being a Rotarian was the fellowship & friendship
- There’s visiting Tanzania and South Africa on holiday and realising that the developed world needs to help the less fortunate
- There’s the unashamed pride in what Joan (Greening, my wife) achieved as the first lady President of the club (I am, of course, blessed to be the first President of this club to have succeeded their spouse in the role – I have no illusions about how hard an act that is to follow but no doubt that I will get from Joan all the support and strength that she has given me throughout our life together).
So I joined, and was honoured to be inducted by Joan – shortly before we went off to Chicago for the Centenary Convention – with 45,000 of our closest friends.
The closest friends things is what for me epitomises being a Rotarian – doesn’t matter where you are in the world, a local Rotary club will be delighted to have you visit and will share with you the same shade of camaraderie and insults as if you’d know them all your life. I’ve found this personally at clubs we’ve visited together in the US, Bermuda and elsewhere in the UK. Last year I did a 160 mile round trip to Dubai for the evening to attend the nearest Rotary club while I was working in Abu Dhabi – it was, as usual, well worth the trip.
So my Rotary is about belonging, being uplifted, in the company of like-minded friends, trying to be part of making the world we live in a better place and helping those in need. What I want above all from my year as President is that we start to move to a position where this club can continue to support the community and the world for another 30 years. This means that we must focus, above all else, on increasing our membership and on making ourselves attractive and accessible to a new generation of Rotarians.
I’m particularly heartened to see that the BBC seems to have started a subversive campaign to make Rotarians out of 6-10 year olds. Those of you with young children or grandchildren will be familiar with Tronji – the latest TV/game phenomenon for the 6-10 range. From the same stable as the Teletubbies and In the Night Garden it is taking the UK by storm – this year’s Xmas requests will all be Tronji related, you have been warned. What interests me is the parallel between Tronji world and My Rotary. Tronjis are seeking happiness in their world and in Peopleworld. They recruit from Peopleworld to help them in their goal, each using their own skill to help bring happiness about. There are clear moral, but non-denominational messages throughout the programme and a desire to inform. And then it struck me – the company behind this programme must be engaged in a secret putsch to build Rotary membership in the year 2040.
Now wouldn’t it be just typical of Rotary to have such a great idea and keep it a secret? Please don’t keep Rotary a secret – ask your closest friends and relatives to join. Those of you who are here tonight and are not yet Rotarians, we look forward to welcoming you into the Rotary family.
Thanks for listening (or in this case reading!), thanks being a part of this club – I hope you will all continue to be a part of us for a long time to come".
No comments:
Post a Comment