Looking For A Few Good Members- West Orange Rotary

At our Rotary meeting at Pals last Friday, the topic of conversation came up about membership.  “Here we go again”, I thought.  I have been a member for 15 years and every year the topic of membership comes up, how we need new members, not just our club but in every club around the world, membership is dwindling. Not just Rotary, all service clubs are losing members.  Service club membership around the world is hemorrhaging, but why and what can we do about it?  People are busy, we say.  Young people have no interest in joining service clubs, we say.  It’s just an excuse to do nothing, I say, because I have said the same thing myself. 

But the real tragedy is that Rotary is such an essential and effective organization that we cannot afford to lose it.  Not just West Orange, but the entire world needs Rotary.  Why? 

To answer that question we need to go back to Rotary’s guiding principles:

The Object of Rotary

The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

• FIRST. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
• SECOND. High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
• THIRD. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;
• FOURTH. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

Since 1905, when Paul Harris started Rotary from a small group of businessmen in Chicago, Rotary has grown to about 1.2 million members in 34,000 clubs around the world.  But we are not really growing anymore, especially in the USA, our numbers are dwindling.

Our motto is “Service Above Self” and our projects range from providing local scholarships in our own hometowns, to international programs that improve education, provide clean water, combat hunger, improve health and sanitation and eradicate polio.  Do you know that because of Rotary’s Polio Plus program that for the first time in recorded history, India has been declared Polio free for the last 2 years?

Just this year, our club won a Rotary International Grant in the amount of $11,000 to provide a functioning laundry room for Camp Merryheart, a summer camp for severely disabled children in Hackettstown.  Do you know that $3000 of the funds came from a Rotary district in India??  INDIA???  How great is that?

When the tsunami hit SE Asia years ago, many service organizations had trouble getting into the area to provide relief.  But, Shelter Box, a Rotary sanctioned International Service organization was able to get in within the first 24 hours.  Why?  Rotary has gravitas.  It is respected around the world as a non-denominational, non-political organization that provides an invaluable service to our world and its only agenda is to “spread peace, goodwill and understanding”. 

Check out www.shelterboxusa.org

When I first joined Rotary in 1998, I considered that phrase “spread peace through goodwill and understanding” as an idealistic goal, only a Pollyanna takes seriously.  Who are we kidding? The world is a scary, angry place and war, famine, plague, terrorism and inequities abound.  How do you combat that?  It seems impossible. 

But after 9/11, my opinion of Rotary’s goals and guiding principles became more realistic.  The world needs Rotary because we are one of the forces that combat evil in this world. Rotary combats evil without guns, threats, sanctions or bloodshed.  Don’t get me wrong.  There is a time and a place for everything but, inevitably, in order to win the hearts and minds of a people, we have to give them hope, we have to educate them and we do this through “spreading peace through understanding and goodwill”.

 Since 1947, Rotary has given over 41,000 scholarships (52 million dollars) to educate graduate students to become Ambassadorial Scholars.  These are our future world leaders and they are being trained in conflict resolution, peace studies and international relations.  Again, “promoting peace through understanding and goodwill” Rotary puts its money where its mouth is.

Why should you join Rotary?  From personal experience, it has changed my life in ways I never thought it would.  Back in 1998, when I was knee deep in a new practice and craved human contact, I thought I was joining a social club.  Over the last 15 years I have made some of the most important and sustainable relationships of my entire life.  My Rotary family IS my family, they have my back and I have theirs.  But more than that, I found a purpose in serving Rotary and I have never looked back. 

If you join Rotary, I will guarantee you a few things.  If you are open to it, you will meet good people and make lifelong friends that share your goals, dreams and principles.  And if you let it, it will change your life for the good, forever.

We need Rotary so we need members.  Good members who want to change the world for the better a little at a time.  On Monday, when the bombs in Boston shattered our comfortable lives with shocking reality, I was angry and frustrated and I wanted to do something.   What can we do?  Sure, we can donate blood and supplies, but little else.

But you can join Rotary.  By joining Rotary, you can slap the face of those who wish us harm and try to hurt us.  By joining Rotary you can say that, “Here is one more person that believes in Spreading peace through understanding and goodwill”.  By joining Rotary, you can join a fellowship of 1.2 million Rotary brothers and sisters that have your back.  By joining Rotary you will see firsthand how we can change the world and improve the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves. 

And perhaps, through one small act of kindness, one polio vaccine, one caress of a small child’s head during a crises, we can change one life.  That one life will grow up to become a healthy functioning member of society that doesn’t try to blow people up and commit evil on the world.  “Promote peace through understanding and goodwill” not so Pollyannaish anymore, huh?

How can you change the world?  Join Rotary.  Check us out at:  www.westorangerotary.org to see what we are doing to change the world

Contact us at:  info@westorangerotary.org for membership information.