Page 577 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 30 March 2021
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Over time, Rotary’s reach and vision gradually extended to an organisation with global humanitarian service. Rotary’s motto, “Service Above Self,” exemplifies the humanitarian spirit of the organisation’s members. In 1915, writing in Rotary magazine, Rotary’s founder, Paul Harris, remarked:
What Rotary will be one hundred years hence, none living can imagine.
Since its humble beginnings in Chicago in 1905, Rotary International has grown to over 33,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas. Its members form a global network of business and professional men and women who volunteer their time and talents to serve their communities and the world. There are now over a million members of Rotary: 387,000 in Asia, 337,000 in North America, 295,000 in Europe, 90,000 in South America, 43,000 in the British Isles, and 34,000 in Australia and the Pacific. This represents an amazing contribution by men and women giving back to their communities and to communities around the globe.
Worldwide, Rotary provides its humanitarian service under six broad goals: promoting peace; clean water, sanitation and hygiene; saving mothers and babies; supporting education; growing local economies; and fighting disease. One way these goals are achieved is through the Rotary Foundation. Since it was founded, more than 100 years ago, the foundation has spent more than $4 billion on life-changing, sustainable projects around the world. Rotary is able to make such significant financial contributions partly because local Rotarians carry most of the administrative burdens and therefore overhead costs can be kept very low.
Our own local Rotary District 9705 encompasses passionate men and women from around 50 Rotary clubs, spanning towns and cities within southern New South Wales and the ACT, from the South Coast, the Great Dividing Range and the Western Plains. Within the district there are 11 clubs in the ACT.
The 2021 Rotary District 9705 Conference in Bathurst was held over 20 and 21 March at the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre. This year’s district governor, Michael Moore, a previous member of this place, chaired the conference, under the Rotary International theme for 2021: “Rotary opens opportunities”. I wish Michael great success this year as district governor.
One of the clubs in my electorate, and Mrs Jones’s electorate as well, is the Rotary Club of Canberra-Weston Creek. The Rotary Club of Canberra-Weston Creek was established on 17 May 1980. The club meets every Monday from 6 pm to 6.30 at the Canberra Irish Club in Parkinson Street, Weston. I am honoured to have been a member of the club since 2008.
I have seen firsthand the extraordinary dedication of its members towards service in our local community. I pay particular respect to my friends from Weston Creek but do so knowing that all over Canberra and our district are equally dedicated Rotarians serving their own communities. One of the great strengths of Rotary is how each individual club, like my own club in Weston Creek, can contribute a small amount towards great global goals. While the world is being devastated by the COVID-19
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