Bulletin

Synopsis of This Past Year

Under the leadership of President John we have enjoyed a productive Rotary year. One of its most important features has been the induction, by our President, of three new members and there are two more in the pipeline which our President for next year, David, plans to induct as soon as possible. Following a long period when new members were thin on the ground this should give us new hope for the future of our Club. 

Our President’s Night this year was graced by the presence of nineteen of our dear friends from the Næstved Club. Because their visit didn’t coincide with the usual Ascension Day holiday weekend it was a shorter stay than usual but they seemed to have spent a most enjoyable weekend with us. The new venue for President’s Night has proved to be a success with our members and guests.

Our Youth Activities programme has been particularly full. Youth Speaks continues to go from strength to strength and we received a good number of high quality entries again this year. Although we no longer run the Young Musicians’ competition we continue to give our support through the presentation of trophies and prizes. Two new Rotary cups have been initiated this year for the new dancing category and will be presented, along with our other trophies, at next year’s competition.

The Stocks and Shares programme for primary schools has been launched and we will be hearing much more about this during the coming Rotary year. Our Schools’ Cricket competition has run into a few weather problems but, with the help and co-operation of the schools concerned, all the matches should be completed this summer.

Now that the Young Chef competition has become a District sponsored event our participation in this is being considered for next year. The Editor assumes that there will be no shortage of volunteers for tasting and judging.

To cap all this we have a RYLA candidate and James Maudlin who, at eighteen years of age has just retired from the Henley Sea Cadets, will be attending the one week residential course in North Wales in August.

As usual, our Community work has enjoyed yet another good year. Christmas Bingo and the Fireworks Mulled Wine produced substantial funds and donations have been made as mentioned on page 6

Kids Out was the great success it always is and was enjoyed just as much by our volunteer Rotarians as it was by the kids themselves.

Our contributions to Foundation have continued to be substantial and we will be intensifying our efforts in this direction in the future.

One of the highlights of the year was, of course, the celebration of Sam Bentley’s one hundredth birthday. We had a splendid party at the Cricket Club and it was good to see District Governor Jean there in addition to a good number of Sam’s old friends. The love and respect we have for Sam goes beyond his past contribution as a Rotarian and extends to the man himself as a valued and dear friend.

Yorkshire businessman Allan Jagger was be inaugurated on June 30th as President of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland at The Armouries, Leeds. He will lead 58,000 Rotarians in 1845 clubs across Great Britain and Ireland who are committed to service in communities at home and abroad. The Presidential handover ceremony will be attended by The Lord Mayor of Leeds Councillor Brian Cleasby and The Lady Mayoress Jocelyn Cleasby and more than three hundred Rotarians and their partners from Rotary Districts within Great Britain and Ireland. Allan is a member of the Rotary Club of Elland.

A major focus will be The Rotary Foundation, Rotary's corporate charity, which is dedicated to furthering international understanding, goodwill, and peace and gives more than £30 million every year to educational and humanitarian programmes. Allan Jagger, President Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland said ” The Foundation relies on the enthusiastic support of Rotarians voluntarily giving generously of their time and money, and has become one of the foremost nongovernmental foundations in the world. It is said that every minute of every day Rotary will touch the lives of millions.

Ask RI President Bill Boyd

During the past 20 years, we’ve made a lot of progress against polio. Now, there are so many other terrible diseases that affect far more people than polio does. In fact, polio is almost eradicated, so why doesn’t Rotary International focus on another disease? 

Put simply, the job is not finished, and Rotary keeps its promises. We promised the children of the world that they would grow up in a world without polio and that their children would not have to face the threat of that dreaded disease. If we are to fulfil this promise, we need to stay focused until there is no more wild poliovirus.

We all realize that children around the world are unfairly faced with myriad threats to their well-being. It is truly heartbreaking to see a child suffering from any disease that could have been prevented.

Though great progress has been made toward a polio-free world, we cannot turn our attention away now. Because current funding levels for polio immunization campaigns cannot be sustained indefinitely, cases would increase dramatically. Failure to eradicate polio would result in an estimated 10 million paralyzed children in the next 40 years and would negate the world’s US$5.3 billion investment in the initiative.

The only way to protect every child from polio is to eradicate this crippling and potentially fatal disease completely. The strategies and tools are known, and health experts agree that the challenges to stopping the spread of polio can be met. Rotary was the first organisation to have the vision of a polio-free world, so we need to sustain our commitment to creating a world with one less threat for every child.

Paul Harris worked as a newspaper reporter, a business teacher, stock company actor, cowboy, and travelled extensively in the USA and Europe selling marble and granite. In 1896, he went to Chicago to practice law. On the evening of 23 February 1905, Harris invited three friends to a meeting. Silvester Schiele, a coal dealer, Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor, and Gustavus Loehr, a mining engineer, gathered with Harris in Loehr's business office in Room 711 of the Unity Building in downtown Chicago. They discussed Harris' idea that business leaders should meet periodically to enjoy camaraderie and to enlarge their circle of business and professional acquaintances.

The club met weekly; membership was limited to one representative from each business and profession. Though the men didn't use the term Rotary that night, that gathering is commonly regarded as the first Rotary club meeting.

As they continued to convene, members began rotating their meetings among their places of business, hence the name Rotary. After enlisting a fifth member, printer Harry Ruggles, the group was formally organized as the Rotary Club of Chicago. The original club emblem, a wagon wheel design, was the precursor of the familiar cogwheel emblem now used by Rotarians worldwide.

By the end of 1905, the club's roster showed a membership of 30 with Schiele as president and Ruggles as treasurer. Paul Harris declined office in the new club and didn't become its president until two years later. Club membership grew, making it difficult to gather in offices, so the members shifted their meetings to hotels and restaurants, where many Rotary club meetings are held today.

These early "Rotarians" realized that fellowship and mutual self-interest were not enough to keep a club of busy professionals meeting each week. Reaching out to improve the lives of the less fortunate proved to be an even more powerful motivation. The Rotary commitment to service began in 1907, when the Rotary Club of Chicago donated a horse to a preacher. The man's own horse had died, and because he was too poor to buy another one, he was unable to make the rounds of his churches and parishioners. A few weeks later, the club constructed Chicago's first public lavatory. With these inaugural projects, Rotary became the world's first service-club.

Rotarians frequently ask me, “When you founded Rotary, did you think it would come to anything like this?” No, I did not in 1905 foresee a worldwide movement of 6,000 clubs and 300,000 men. When a man plants an unpromising sapling in the early Springtime, can he be sure that someday here will grow a mighty tree?

Does he not have to reckon on rain and sun—and the smile of Providence? Once he sees the first bud—ah, then he can begin to dream of shade.

The Rotarian February 1947

^{Membership Services}

^{Becoming A Rotarian}

An association of some 30,000 autonomous clubs in more than 160 countries, Rotary International is one of the world's largest service organizations. The goal for a club's membership is an up-to-date and progressive representation of the community's business, vocational, and professional interests.  An important distinction between Rotary and other organizations is that membership in Rotary is by invitation. Rotary clubs invite individuals to join and become members.  

Membership is vital to a Rotary club's operations and community service activities. A primary goal of the club is to continually expand with committed members who have the interest and ability to get involved in service and humanitarian projects. Prospective members must:

The Rotary Club of Henley-on-Thames 

meets each Tuesday 12.15pm for 12.45pm at