ENGAGE ROTARY, CHANGE LIVES RI-2013-14

RI President-elect RON D. BURTON

I’m looking forward to the 2013-14 Rotary year and the immense and humbling privilege of serving as your Rotary International president. During my presidential year, I’ll let you know on the Rotary International president’s Facebook page and in blog posts about some of my travels. I hope this will help you experience some of the magic of Rotary.

I have to admit, during my first year as a Rotarian, I almost missed the magic of Rotary. I didn’t always care for the food and programs at the weekly club meetings, and I thought I had better ways to spend my time. But then my club president asked me to chair the Rotary Foundation committee. Rotary started changing for me after that. I found that the more engaged I became in Rotary and the work of The Rotary Foundation, the more I saw the magic of Rotary and how it changed lives.

That magic may be a little bit different for each one of us, but it’s there for all of us when we really put our hearts into some aspect of Rotary service. For me, my heart is in the Foundation. I feel that every time you donate to the Foundation you’re saying, “It’s my resource, as a Rotarian; and it’s my responsibility.”

Your new governors already have joined me in this and led by example, with 100 percent of them donating to the Foundation. I thank them for their commitment to Rotary, which they’ve shown through their donations as well as facing the challenge of inspiring new members to get more involved and learn about the true meaning of Rotary.

When we really engage Rotary, that’s when lives change. And, at the end of the day, no matter how many lives you reach out to change, the life that will change the most will be your own.

That’s what our theme for 2013-2014 is all about. Engage Rotary, Change Lives.

Dear fellow Rotarians,

Rotary is an international organization, and when I travel for Rotary, I usually speak in English. But it has been a long time since my last English exam, and when I am working in Evanston, I always have a Japanese interpreter. It is important to understand every word of the meetings, and it is important as well that the staff understand what I am saying.

It was a new experience for me to speak Japanese to a group, and then hear my words spoken in English. Even now, I find it interesting. I hear new ways of expressing myself in English, and I also have a small glimpse of what it must be like not to speak Japanese.

But perhaps the most interesting moment came early on in my year as president-elect, when I was in a meeting with Rotary staff members. To be sure that we could communicate well, I had with me a Japanese interpreter. I spoke in Japanese, and she interpreted what I said into English. We had a pleasant and productive meeting.

After it was over, one member of the staff came up to me and asked, “There is one word I heard you use many times in Japanese. I would like to know what it means. What is the word ichiban?” I told her thatichiban in Japanese does not convey any philosophy or complicated thought. It simply means to be the best.

But it made me think. Of all the words I had used in Japanese, of all the words she had heard over and over, this was the word she had heard the most. I did not realize I had used it so often. But for me, that one word, ichiban, is essential to how I feel about my job as a Rotarian, and as president of RI.

For me, Rotary service means being ichiban. It means doing your best, and being the best you can be. It means working as hard as you can – not for yourself, but for others. It means achieving as much as you can, to make other people’s lives better.

In the dictionary, ichiban means “best.” But in Rotary, “best” means something different. It means bringing Service Above Self into all of your thinking. It means looking at your own effort, not in terms of what it costs you, but in terms of what it can give. In this way, we are inspired to do so much more. It is our job to see to it that our Rotary service is ichiban – so that we do the most we can to build Peace Through Service.

 

Sakuji Tanaka
President, Rotary International

ART OF JOURNALISM “Pens make Sense” seminar

D3820 MOA signing

Area 1 Grp 1 Meeting (PE Elect)

Joint Intercity Meeting (Area 1 & 2)

Joint Project of RCSPE & RACSPE

Iwas Yapak 3 (Sitio Rustan)