SERVICE ABOVE SELF


JUNE 2020 : ISSUE 134


O


n one day a year, every year for decades, the long trek had been made to the gathering. Up at first light, collecting fellow travellers


then getting underway. Would they be in time for the bacon rolls or would there be the inevitable holdups? Then hearing the presentations and doing the same trip home again. Well not this year, the District 1010 Assembly was on Zoom. You could get up as close to 10am as you wanted, in fact no one would really have noticed if you were in your pjs and you only had to get from your bedroom to the computer, laptop, iPad, tablet or mobile phone. Ken McLennan (DGNN) held the technical reins and guided the uncertain to full audio and video capability. Heather (DGN) encouraged and summarised the chat room including asking the questions that were raised and Alistair Robb (DGE) was MC. Did it work? Yes – it worked for 240 Rotarians, 7 of whom were Kilrymont members. Proceedings opened with a welcome from DG Al istair McNair and an introduction from Alistair Robb and his theme of “Rotary at the Heart of Communities”. The first speaker joined us from Sydney, Australia. Evan Burrell is a proud Rotarian, so proud he even has a suit made of cloth festooned with the Rotary emblem. When not wearing the suit Evan can also tear open his shirt to reveal his Super Rotarian T-shi r t underneath. He encouraged us all to wear Rotary “paraphernal ia” wherever we went even if it is just your up to date Rotary Pin. Evan has an extremely active Facebook page and thousands of followers. The number of followers increased e v e n mo r e a f t e r h i s presentation. In presenting his new look on Public Image, he strongly advocates social


6


media in its many forms to publicise Rotary - a Rotary which is dynamic, helping people, and having fun while doing that. Evan came up with many catch phrases eg: when asked ‘What does a Rotarian do?’ “We help people, it’s what we do”; “Make it personal, but make it fun!”, “Take Rotary seriously, but be serious about it”; “Don’t focus on numbers, focus on Rotarians”. This was endorsed by a later speaker, Alan Brown, President of the recently formed Forth Bridges Club who asked why 20 was the magic number for forming a new Rotary Club. “Is it not better to have 10 people committed to Rotary and its aims rather than 20 just to make up the numbers?”. Evan has designed lots of images which help convey what Rotary does and why people should become Rotarians. He describes Rotary as an iceberg – above the watermark is what you see before joining, and below, the much greater part of the iceberg, is what you see after joining.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12