Programme for week commencing 12th March, 2015

Rotarian Tim Mason calls on us all to go tell the world about Rotary International.  We need to share what we do and how we do Service above Self as individuals, as a team and as a network.

Since joining Rotary I have learnt so much about every charity under the sun, I have watched presentations and heard talks about how different people are developing our communities, doing projects around the world, changing how we manage our lives. Yes, the Rotary weekly programme widens your knowledge, you hear about who needs help and there are some awesome people who are passionate about what they present to Rotarians.

So we need to learn from this, we need to seek opportunities to tell people about Rotary and our charity the Rotary Foundation, what we achieve, how we do it and why. This is not about us bragging, this is about us being proud of what we achieve and wanting to work with others to achieve more.

What I love about Rotary is that we have very specific Objects (see our programme Rotary Awareness – Building on our foundations), very much linked to Service above Self. It is important that we share this with people that we are a service organisation, but how do others see us?

One of the projects I am enjoying doing has been the Let’s Loop Swindon project, it has involved me in learning more about the work of the partners involved. I’ve learnt a considerable amount about becoming hard of hearing and how, as a community, we need to ensure we have the right resources in place to make this not such a big issue e.g. a simple Hearing Loop. I’ve been involved in something that encourages volunteering and, with that, how this encourages building confidence, self-esteem and a team being empowered to take action. We need to tell more and more people about how Rotary, through the Rotary Community Corps, is helping to take action in partnership within the Swindon community and to promote to others that Rotary can facilitate more community development in partnership.

So as we develop our Click 4 Action eRotary network we need to consider how are we ensuring that what Rotary does, achieves and inspires is communicated to our friends, family, work colleagues and anyone else that might be interested. The great attribute of being a Rotarian within eRotary is we can do this through many different mediums e.g. Social Media, Texting, Newspapers, just conversations. What we must do is remember to do it, this is a Service we can offer the world when we post to raise awareness to help more people understand 2.5 billion people don’t have toilets in our world, many still drink dirty water, yes communities want to help themselves, but need all of us to work together to achieve more.

Let’s spread the message about our Rotary Foundation, the Rotary charity that can help change lives, let’s tell people about the projects it’s involved in and how this achieves so much in empowering the development of sustainable communities. We can do this through our sharing of a ticket in our eDraw, tell people about how their funds can bring hope, change and new lives, with such a small investment.

Finally, we are at the time of the year when we are thinking of our plans for the new Rotary Year 2015/16 which starts on the 1st July. I believe the incoming Rotary International President K.R. “Ravi” Ravindran, who calls on us to ensure our plans are about Service above Self, gives us the opportunity to continue to develop our Rotary activities, whilst ensuring we share with others what we do so that everyone knows and understands Rotary is a magic organisation and the secret is out.