Misplaced Pages

Rotary International: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 12:47, 6 July 2006 editJimMillerJr (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers5,432 edits rv - inappropriate link to individual club← Previous edit Revision as of 12:51, 6 July 2006 edit undoAndyJones (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers12,498 edits JimMillerJr you are quite right, but why didn't you remove the other one, at the same time?Next edit →
Line 143: Line 143:
* *
* *
*
* *


Revision as of 12:51, 6 July 2006

File:RotaryIntLogo.png

Rotary International is an organization whose members comprise Rotary Clubs (service clubs) located all over the world (about 30 000 clubs in more than 160 countries). The members of Rotary Clubs are known as Rotarians and are business and professional leaders who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

Their most-known motto is "Service above Self." Another motto is "They profit most who serve best".

The resolution to remove gender specific terminology from secondary motto was taken by Rotary International Council of Legislation in 2004.

The world's first service club, the first Rotary Club was founded in 1905 in Chicago by attorney Paul P. Harris and three other businessmen. The National Association of Rotary Clubs was formed in 1910. The name was changed to Rotary International in 1922 because branches had been formed in many other countries. It has by now spread to 167 countries and now has more than 1.2 million members in over 32,000 clubs. The name Rotary was chosen since meetings were originally rotated to different locales of members of the organization. Members of a specific club meet weekly for breakfast, lunch or dinner, which is a social event as well as a time to organize work on their service goals.

Membership

According to its constitutions ("Charters"), Rotary defines itself as a non-partisan, non-sectarian organization. Its membership tends towards the middle-aged and wealthy, although it is open to business and professional leaders of all ages and wealth is not a membership criterion.

Innerwheel
Innerwheel
Rotaract
Rotaract
Interact
Interact

After years of debate, women were admitted in 1989, and now make up a little under 12% of the membership. Previously, women were able to join a linked organization for the wives and daughters of Rotarians, the Inner Wheel. Many Inner Wheel groups still exist.

Other Rotary sponsored organizations include: Rotaract - a service club for young men and women ages 18 to 30 with around 185,000 members in 8,000 clubs in 155 countries; Interact - a service club consisting of more than 239,000 young people ages 14-18 with over 10,400 clubs in 108 countries; and Rotary Community Corps (RCC) - a volunteer organization with an estimated 103,000 non-Rotarian men and women in over 4,400 communities in 68 countries.

Active Membership is by invitation from a current Rotarian, to professionals working in diverse areas of endeavour. Each club can have up to ten per cent of its membership representing each business or profession in the area it serves. The goal of the clubs is to promote service to the community they work in, as well as to the wider world. Many projects are organized for the local community by a single club, but some are organized globally.

Honorary membership is given by election of a Rotary Club to people who have distinguished themselves by meritorious service in the furtherance of Rotary ideals. Honorary membership is conferred only in exceptional cases. Honorary members are exempt from the payment of admission fees and dues. They have no voting privileges and are not eligible to hold any office in their club. Honorary membership is time limited and terminates automatically at the end of the term, usually one year. It may be extended for an additional period or may also be revoked at any time.

Female membership controversy

From 1905 until the 1980s, women were not allowed membership in Rotary clubs, although Rotarian spouses, including Paul Harris's wife, were often members of the similar "Inner Wheel" club.

Gender equity in Rotary International was first publicly raised by the Duarte RI club affair. In 1976-1978, the California Rotary Duarte club allowed three women to join. Official Rotary International representatives expressed alarm at the presence of women in the Duarte club. Requests by Rotary International to terminate the women's memberships were rejected by the club, and as a result Rotary International revoked the club's charter in 1978. The Duarte club filed suit in the California courts, claiming that Rotary Clubs are business establishments subject to regulation under California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race, gender, religion or ethnic origin. Rotary International then appealed the decision to the U. S. Supreme Court. The RI attorney argued that "… threatens to force us to take in everyone, like a motel". The Duarte Club was not alone in opposing RI leadership; the Seattle-International District club unanimously voted to admit women in 1986. The United States Supreme Court, on May 4, 1987, confirmed the Californian decision at the unanimity of its members. Since that time, women have been allowed to join Rotary.

The change of the second Rotarian motto in 2004, from "He profits most who serves best" to "They profit most who serve best", 99 years after its foundation illustrates the move to general acceptance of women members in the famous philanthropic club.

Objectives of Rotary

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

  1. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
  2. 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;
  3. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;
  4. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

Rotary programs

Polio-Plus

Polio-Plus
Polio-Plus

The most notable current global project, Polio-Plus, is contributing to the global eradication of polio. Since beginning the project in 1985 Rotarians have contributed over US$500 million and tens of thousands of volunteer man-hours, leading to the inoculation of more than one billion of the world's children. Inspired by Rotary's commitment, the World Health Organization (WHO) passed a resolution in 1988 to eradicate polio by 2000. Now in partnership with WHO, UNICEF and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rotary is recognized by the United Nations as the key private partner in the eradication effort.

Exchanges and Scholarships

File:RotaryYouthExchangeLogo.jpg

Some of Rotary's most visible programs include Rotary Youth Exchange, a student exchange program for students in secondary education, and Rotary's oldest program, Ambassadorial Scholarships. Today, there are six different types of Rotary Scholarships. More than 30,000 men and women from 100 nations have studied abroad under the auspices of Ambassadorial Scholarship, and today it is the world's largest privately funded international scholarships program. In 2002-2003 grants totaling approximately US$26 million were used to award some 1,200 scholarships to recipients from 69 countries who studied in 64 nations. The Exchange Students of Rotary Club Munich International publish their experiences on a regular basis on Rotary Youth Exchange with Germany.

Rotary Centers for International Studies

Starting in 2002, The Rotary Foundation partnered with eight universities around the world to create the Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution. The universities include International Christian University (Japan), University of Queensland (Australia), Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) (France), University of Bradford (United Kingdom), University del Salvador (Argentina), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA), Duke University (USA), and University of California, Berkeley (USA). Rotary World Peace Fellows complete two year masters level programs in conflict resolution, peace studies, and international relations. The first class graduated in 2004 . In 2004, Fellows established the Rotary World Peace Fellows Association to promote interaction among Fellows, Rotarians, and the public on issues related to peace studies.

Critics and Trivia

Rotary celebrated its centennial anniversary on February 23, 2005.


Criticisms against Polio-Plus

There has been some limited criticism concerning the Rotary International program for polio eradication, which is supported with the help of World Health Organization. Medical research, has some reservations regarding the adaptation capabilities of the virus and reservations about some of the oral vaccines, which seem to be causing infection resurgences. As stated by Vaccine Alliance, however, in spite of the limited risk of polio vaccination, it will not be either prudent or practicable to cease the vaccination program until there is strong evidence the "All wild poliovirus transmission stopped". In a recent speech at the Rotary International Convention, held at the Bella Center in Copanhagen, Bruce Cohick stated that polio in all its known wild forms will be eliminated by late 2008, provided efforts in Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India all proceed with their current momentum.

Rotary and Nazi Germany

Many German Rotary clubs, with the onset of the Nazi dictatorship in the 1930s, ceased operation due to government oppositon. Others, however, excluded Jewish members and otherwise appeased Nazi demands. In Munich, Nobel Prize-winning author Thomas Mann was removed from the membership as a political enemy of the Nazis.

As the Nazis saw international organisations as suspect, the Nazi Party declared membership to both Rotary and the Nazi Party as incompatible. After four years of negotiations between the central headquarters in Chicago and the Nazi Party - indicative of Rotary efforts to oppose Nazi ideologies - clubs were closed and Charters withdrawn in 1938. Some clubs maintained an activity as "Friday Clubs". Rotary began re-chartering clubs after World War II ended.

Paul Harris, Rotary's founder, was in Germany in 1932 as part of a European tour. While there, he planted a "tree of friendship" at an airport in Berlin, the first of several such plantings in Europe that year. This original tree was commemorated with a plaque (though it was later removed due to the Nazis' opposition to Rotary). The tree, destroyed in World War II, would be replaced in 1985 along with the original plaque.

Famous Rotarians

Rotary Club banners.

Honorary members

Active members

See Rotary history for more. For an extensive list of famous Rotary Club members, see Category:Rotary Club members

Notes

  1. Modified by the 2004 "RI Council on Legislation", from the original "He profits most who serves the best" - see Rotary International manual, Part 5 (Rotary Marks), online at accessed 2 June 2006
  2. Rotary International California District website accessed 17 June 2006
  3. "ABCs of Rotary" website accessed 17 June 2006
  4. http://www.rotaryfirst100.org/global/conflict/munich/index.htm
  5. http://www.rotaryfirst100.org/library/trees/europe/index.htm

External links

Template:Link FA

Categories: