By Arnold Grahl in Rotary News on 18-Apr-2016
​https://www.rotary.org/myrotary/en/news-media/council-grants-clubs-greater-flexibility-meeting-membership

 The 2016 Council on Legislation may well be remembered as one of the most progressive in Rotary history. 

   Not only did this Council grant clubs more freedom in determining their meeting schedule and membership, it also approved an increase in per capita dues of $4 a year for three years. The increase will be used to enhance Rotary’s website, improve online tools, and add programs and services to help clubs increase membership. 

   The Council is an essential element of Rotary’s governance. Every three years, members from around the world gather in Chicago to consider proposed changes to the policies that govern the organization and its member clubs. Measures that are adopted take effect 1 July. 

   The tone for this year was set early, when the RI Board put forth two proposals that increase flexibility. The first measure allows clubs to decide to vary their meeting times, whether to meet online or in person, and when to cancel a meeting, as long as they meet at least twice a month. The second allows clubs flexibility in choosing their membership rules and requirements. Both passed. 

   Representatives also approved removing six membership criteria from the RI Constitution and replacing them with a simple requirement that a member be a person of good character who has a good reputation in their business or community and is willing to serve the community. 

   The $4 per year dues increase was based on a five-year financial forecast that predicted that if Rotary didn’t either raise dues or make drastic cuts, its reserves would dip below mandated levels by 2020. The yearly per capita dues that clubs pay to RI will be $60 in 2017-18, $64 in 2018-19, and $68 in 2019-20. The next council will establish the rate after that. 

   “We are at a moment in time when we must think beyond the status quo,” said RI Vice President Greg E. Podd. “We must think about our future.”
Podd said the dues increase will allow RI to improve My Rotary, develop resources so clubs can offer a better membership experience, simplify club and district reporting, improve website access for Rotaractors, and update systems to keep Rotary in compliance with changing global regulations. 

   Also because of this Council’s decisions: 

• A Council on Resolutions will meet annually online to consider resolutions — recommendations to the RI Board. Council members will be selected for three-year terms. They’ll participate in the Council on Resolution for three years and the Council on Legislation in their final year only. The Council on Resolutions will free the Council on Legislation to concentrate on enactments — changes to Rotary’s governing documents. Proponents predict that the Council on Legislation can then be shortened by a day, saving $300,000. 

• Rotaractors will be allowed to become members of Rotary clubs while they are still in Rotaract. Proponents argued that too few Rotaractors (around 5 percent) join Rotary. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to leave their Rotaract clubs before they have to, upon reaching age 30. It’s hoped that giving them more options will boost the numbers of qualified young leaders in Rotary. 

• The distinction between e-clubs and traditional clubs will be eliminated. The council recognized that clubs have been meeting in a number of ways, and given this flexibility, the distinction was no longer meaningful. Clubs that have “e-club” in their names can keep it, however. 

• The reference to admission fees will be removed from the bylaws. Proponents argued that the mention of admission fees does not advance a modern image of Rotary. 

• A standing committee on membership was established, in recognition that membership is a top priority of the organization, and polio eradication was also reaffirmed to be a goal of the highest order. 

Some years ago, I was asked to speak at an Interact club in my home city of Colombo, Sri Lanka. I have always taken my interactions with Rotary youth very seriously, so I prepared my remarks carefully and put the same effort into my presentation that I would for any other event. After the meeting, I stayed to chat with a few of the Interactors, answering their questions and wishing them well.

I came out of the classroom where we had met into the autumn afternoon. The bright sun was shining directly into my eyes, so I found a bit of shade behind a pillar where I could wait for my ride.

As I stood there, hidden from view, I overheard a group of the very Interactors who had just listened to my speech. Naturally I was curious: What would they be saying? What had they taken away from my presentation? I quickly realized that what they had taken away was not at all what I had intended.

They were not talking about what I had said, the stories I had told, or the lessons I had come to their school to impart. To my astonishment, the major topic of conversation was my tie! I listened with amusement as they chattered about my Western clothes, my background, my business; every aspect of my appearance and behavior was dissected and discussed. Just as they began to speculate about what car I drove, my ride arrived and I stepped out into view. They were perhaps a bit embarrassed, but I just smiled, got into the car, and drove off with a wave.

Whatever they learned from me that day, I learned far more. I learned that the lessons we teach with our examples are far more powerful than those we teach with words. I realized that as a Rotary leader, and a prominent person in the community, I had, for better or worse, become a role model for these young people. Their eyes were on me in a way that I had never before appreciated. If they chose to emulate me, they would model themselves on what they saw, not what I told them.

All of us in Rotary are leaders, in one way or another, in our communities. All of us bear the responsibility that comes with that. Our Rotary values, our Rotary ideals, cannot be left within the confines of our Rotary clubs. They must be carried with us every day. Wherever we are, whoever we are with, whether we are involved in Rotary work – we are always representing Rotary. We must conduct ourselves accordingly: in what we think, what we say, what we do, and how we do it. Our communities, and our children, deserve no less.

K R Ravindran

President - 2015 - 16

Source: Rotary International

This package includes airfare from Kuala Lumpur via Korean Air and staying at the official hotels, including official transfer to Kintex.

My dear friends! Let me add my own words of welcome to you, the members of our 2016-17 leadership team.
 
On 1 July, the baton will be passed, in every Rotary district, from my class of district governors to yours. And I in turn will also pass the baton of leadership — the one that has been handed down from Paul Harris, through the generations, to me — on to President-Elect John Germ.
 
I will happily tell all of you that our president-elect is not only one of the nicest people you will ever meet, but certainly smarter than I am.
 
John is an Air Force navigator, a civil engineer, and such an expert on polio that when you go with him to these big meetings, at the World Health Organization and so on, you find that as soon as he starts talking, people start addressing him as “Doctor.”
 
So it is with absolute confidence in his abilities, and in yours, that I look forward with you to Rotary’s future: a future in which you will build on nearly 111 years of Rotary service, to meet the growing and changing challenges of a growing and changing world. A world in which Rotary’s greatness will be measured not only by its muscle, but also by its might; not simply by its size, but also by its strength; not merely by the numbers of its members, but by the ability and the willingness of those members to do what needs to be done — and do it well.
 
Rotary is growing. We have 1.23 million members, in more clubs than ever before. New members continue to join, and choose to stay; our numbers have grown by over 8,500 new members just since July first.
 
We are in a position of tremendous strength in Rotary: in our achievements, in our Foundation, and in the respect that our organization has earned.
 
But we know that in order to move forward, we have to be doing more to build Rotary’s greatest asset of all: our membership. By building clubs that are not only large, but diverse; not only skilled, but motivated; with not only the drive but the ability to succeed.
 
At Rotary headquarters, we are working hard to find new and innovative ways to add more value to Rotary membership, such as our Rotary Global Rewards. In just over half a year, we’ve had over 44,000 visits to the site, from well over 12,000 users: more than half of them have redeemed one of the over 700 offers that are now available, saving money and strengthening the Rotary network. It’s still largely U.S.-centric but expanding and growing each day to other parts of the world.
 
We’ve become more flexible than ever in our clubs, finding new ways to make Rotary membership a practical and appealing option to people at all stages of their lives, families, and careers.
And we’ve made it a priority to support the development of clubs that are better able, in every way, to serve their communities with the work that only Rotarians can do.
 
I have seen so much of that work in this year.
 
In India, Rotary is equipping 40,000 schools with toilet blocks — each with two toilets for boys and two for girls.
 
In South America, Rotary is building schools and bringing literacy to youth.
 
Here in the U.S., I have seen Rotary present a helicopter to a children’s hospital, enabling rapid responses to critical emergencies.
 
And I have seen the most beautiful park specially tailored to suit children with disabilities, built by Rotary. A park with specially designed swings, and merry-go-rounds even for wheelchairs, and other such amenities.
 
In Italy, Rotarians are working with the Vatican on mobile medical units and telemedicine for Cambodia. And such is the respect that the Vatican now has for Rotary that His Holiness Pope Francis has announced that on 30 April 2016 he will give Mass to Rotarians at St. Peter’s Square. This is an unprecedented event and a tremendous honor that will raise Rotary’s status across so much of the world. We have 8,000 seats reserved, and I hope I will see many of you there.
 
In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Rotary is working with health authorities and government at the highest levels, ensuring that the world’s last reservoirs of wild poliovirus continue to shrink and that polio will be eradicated, soon and forever.
 
When you hear these stories of Rotary, when your hearts are filled with wonder at the work that Rotary is doing, and with awe at the thought of what we could be doing, I ask you to remember that it does not begin with you or with me. It begins with our members, working in their communities, meeting in their clubs, enjoying their service, coming together through Rotary, because they know that Rotary is their best path to a life well lived.
 
And your job is not to do that service, but to support it. To end your year with a district that is better than it was when your year began, with Rotarians who have the same sense of purpose, of dedication, and of ambition as all of us have here tonight.
 
But there is one thing that we have in this room tonight that we do not have in most of our Rotary clubs. That we have never had. And that we must work to achieve, throughout our entire organization. That is women and men in equal numbers.
 
In 1995, only five of every 100 Rotarians were women. Today, that number has risen to 20. It is progress, but it is not enough.
 
Because in order to fully represent our communities, we must truly reflect our communities. And it is just common sense to say that if we want all of our communities to reach their full potential, economically, socially, and educationally, we can’t exclude half of the world’s population from being fully represented in Rotary. We have had women in Rotary for only the last quarter of our history, and it is no coincidence that those years have been by far our most productive.
 
Rotary’s policy on gender equality is absolutely clear. Yet nearly one-fifth of our clubs today continue to exclude women, usually by claiming that they simply cannot find women who are qualified for membership.
 
I would say that any Rotarian who makes this argument, or believes it, lacks the two most basic qualifications for Rotary membership: honesty and good sense. Let me tell those, who choose to live in a Jurassic Park era, that they should take a moment to remember what happened to the dinosaurs. They became extinct!
 
Equality for women is not just a nice extra. It is absolutely essential to our service, to our future. If we don’t put it front and center, we are dead in the water before we even begin.
 
A club that shuts out women shuts out much more than half the talent, half the ability, and half the connections it should have. It closes out the perspectives that are essential to serving families and communities effectively. It damages not only its own service, but our entire organization, by reinforcing the stereotypes that limit us the most. It makes our partners take us less seriously. And it makes all of Rotary less attractive to potential members, especially the younger people who are so crucial to our future.
 
To tolerate discrimination against women is to doom our entire organization to irrelevance.
 
We cannot pretend that we still live in Paul Harris’ time, nor would he ever want us to. For, as he said, “The story of Rotary will have to be written again and again.”
 
In the new Rotary year that lies before you — you are the ones who will write that story.
 
And it is an awesome responsibility you carry — one on which lives, and livelihoods, very literally depend.
 
In the year to come, you will find yourselves stretched, pushed, tested, perhaps more than you ever have been before. You will be challenged, again and again — but I know you will rise magnificently to those challenges. For you will find that it is often the weight of responsibility that unleashes the abilities within us.
 
So I want to finish tonight by reminding you of the lessons of the Greek mathematician Archimedes.
 
In his own time, he was famous for his work in physics and geometry. He calculated the area of a circle and the volume of a sphere. He was already an old man when the Romans came to attack his island home of Syracuse. And it was Archimedes who rose to the hour, who drew upon his abilities in entirely new ways, designing and devising new means of defense with the simplest of tools: a stick and a sandbox.
 
He had the defenders of the island array polished mirrors on the coast, so that the reflected rays of the sun converged on approaching ships. Hundreds of years later, the Greeks spoke in awe of the rays of Archimedes, which caused the Roman ships to burst into flames. Today, Archimedes is remembered by the Greeks not only as a mathematician, but as a hero.
 
Little is known today about the life of Archimedes. Few of his writings survive. But tradition has it that when he demonstrated the use of the lever, he said, “Give me a lever that is long enough, and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I can move the world.”
 
My friends, we have the fulcrum. The fulcrum is Rotary. And Rotarians are the lever.
 
Together, we can move the world. And we will.
 
Thank you.
 
Source: Rotary International
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#EndPolio will benefit all of us, because polio is just a plane ride away. We're so close. This is the last lap in eradicating polio.

Give to #EndPolio: ​http://ideas.rotary.org/Project/Profile/842897ca-43f5-4809-8b02-f2aff99b5d76

October is Economic and Community Development Month in Rotary International.

Source: https://www.rotary.org/myrotary/en/learning-reference/about-rotary/economic-and-community-development​