Rotary Log: March 29, 2012 (Rotary Today)

Another beautiful Rotary day and the meeting began with a powerful “God Bless America” led by John Rice.  Joanie Dickinson and Walter Liff made announcements about the upcoming April 19^th auction.  Fine Master Butch did some lame jokes and we can only hope the actual joke day will be better.  Shari Donnermeyer was thankful that her daughter decided not to move to the West Coast.  Steve Kniaz was happy that he was going to some exotic island that he couldn’t even pronounce.  Mark Lorusso won the 50/50 raffle, but there was still no match.  This is getting like the mega bucks craze!

            Our program today was our own past President and past Governor, Mort Schmidt.  Mort gave a very informative talk about the past, present and future of Rotary. Made up of over 34,000 Rotary clubs around the world, Rotary International forms a global network of business, professional, and community leaders who volunteer their time and talents to serve communities locally and around the world – and form strong, lasting friendships in the process. Our motto, Service Above Self, exemplifies the humanitarian spirit of the 1.2 million Rotarians worldwide . Service efforts are directed toward our areas of focus:

• Peace and conflict prevention/resolution
• Disease prevention and treatment
• Water and sanitation
• Maternal and child health
• Basic education and literacy
• Economic and community development

 Suffice it to say that there was too much information packed into Mort’s talk to do justice to try and reproduce it.  In short, Rotary began over 100 years ago with a dream to make the world a better place and it has not looked back since.  Indeed, it has gotten stronger with the founding of the Rotary Foundation and becoming a world wide organization that has had massive local and international impacts probably far beyond the imaginations of its founders.  Thank you, Mort, for keeping us grounded in our history and for teaching us that our past is the key to our successful future!