Steve - Let me follow up with a question then you raised, I think an interesting subject that I'd like to hear a little bit more about. What's the difference between a chamber of commerce and a Rotary club in your experience? John - I think the chamber of commerce is really looking into the contacts and the development of business and the furthering of business. There really is no service component to it that I saw whereas, I was at a, in a Rotary club for gosh, for less than a month, here we were on weekends working on a project for a seniors bowling, green bowling facility and redoing the whole thing. We were all out there doing it in work boots and jeans and you know, it was everybody was there. It was remarkable.
Steve - So in terms of the service, how much of the service is actually, sort of working, you know, in kind, doing things and how much of it is fund raising?
Frank - Well both are elements of what we do. We obviously raise funds for international projects because it's more difficult for us to put in time although we do have members that are going to other countries to assist with eye sight operations, with dental operations, with surgeries, those kinds of things. More at the club level its hands on so we have a number of ways of fund raising. We'll have special events every once in a while, we have regular fines at our club which are quite fun and it's small amounts of money typically but it adds up over time and gives us an opportunity to use that money to help others. We are?.
Steve - Sorry, you mentioned fines? What do you get fined for?
Frank - We can get fined for almost anything. One of the standard ones is if you don't have your Rotary pin or you don't have your name badge on, but you can be fined if you are late to a meeting, you can be fined if you're wearing a tie, you can be fined if you're not wearing a tie, you can be fined if you have brown shoes, you can be fined if the judge just feels like fining you. As John said, every club does it different internally and each one's got a different feel. And one of the nice things has been going around to other clubs and seeing how they do it. So what happens at our club isn't necessarily what happens at all and that's probably a good thing. Steve - And when you do get around to the other clubs, how well are you received? Theresa mentioned that she went to one of these make up meetings. Is there, are you immediately, sort of welcomed as a cousin or a brother or just how does that work?
- Thanks Steve, yes it's really quite open and inclusive, very friendly when you walk in to our club or to any club that we're visiting. There is someone specially designated to meet and greet you and to give you a temporary name badge if it's not your home club and we, the seating is usually quite open so you sit with just a group of 6 or 8 people and everyone's chatting. Initially we start with the meal and so there's talk flowing among the tables and then typically the president of the club will get up and deal with some of the club business, introduce the visitors and we all get a round of applause if we're the visitor and sometimes get an opportunity to talk about our club and where we come from especially if we come from a distance. And then the last half hour or so we have the guest speaker, the guest speaker normally talks for about 20 minutes and afterwards there's question and answers and as the meeting ends we then get a chance to chat informally as well. Steve - Frank have you had an opportunity to visit other clubs either here in Canada or in other countries?
Frank - I have, not out of the country, but I have in the lower mainland here and always been received like a member of that club. You might be interested in knowing something about the broader scope of Rotary. Presently, I understand there are 1.2 million Rotarians around the world and 31,000, I think, clubs throughout the world. I've just returned this weekend from a meeting in Seattle where we were trained for, there was 710 incoming presidents being trained at this facility in Seattle. So that gives you some idea the scope of the organization.
Steve - Is there a sort of an international headquarters for Rotary?
Frank - There is. The Rotary international is headquartered in Evanston, just outside of Chicago in the United States. There are also other regional offices located around the world but that is the world headquarters.
Steve - What are some of the countries where Rotary is strong that you're aware of? Frank - I'd like to say that the Rotary is strong throughout the world. Obviously in some of the less developed countries there are fewer clubs. This is changing, changing very fast but the, gosh, I'd have to say that there are probably more Rotarians in the United States than any in other country in the world but that doesn't make any of the rest of the world any less strong. Steve - And how does one deal when you have international meetings of Rotarians? I guess does everyone speak English or do, how is the language issue dealt with?
Frank - Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity to visit an international conference but there are members here. Maybe you could direct that question to them Steve.
Steve.
- Ok, thank you. John have you visited Rotary clubs elsewhere in the world?
John - I have, a rather unique experience. I was in Seoul Korea staying with a friend there and went to visit specifically while he was working on a contract. And at the same hotel, in the lobby I noticed there was a sign, "Rotarians meet here every Thursday at Noon". It just happened to be a Thursday, it was a morning, so I said, well I've got to go. I didn't bring a tie but I went anyway as best dressed as I could. Well there was a room in this 5 star hotel, they, the best dining room they had and every person was in, literally looked like tuxedos. They were that well dressed. Only one of them spoke broken English but I was warmly greeted. I mean I was just, come on in, absolutely, you're more than welcome, sit down and join us. I had a magnificent meal and then I was asked to get up and speak. There was no topic. I got up and I talked for about 5 or 7 minutes and a warm round of applause and I went on my way that afternoon so it was a very unique experience and I'm sure this happens everywhere. Steve - And what sort of international projects has this club been involved with? I heard that you, you know, in the international projects it's more fund raising, or does it go beyond fund raising? What have been some of your international involvements?
John - Well at our annual meeting where we had the installation of a new president a number of years ago, Jeff the president at the time presented to us a video on the need for wheel chairs in third world countries. Well that certainly caught a lot of our attention at that time and it was really through that one evening that subsequently we've seen the development of a foundation and our club alone put together a container load of wheel chairs for a third world country which we are now as a club, trying to pick a country to where we're going to specifically send them. And I believe as well, one or more of our members are going to go along for that trip. So that should be quite an experience.
Steve - Yeah, it's interesting you mention wheel chairs which I wouldn't say we take them for granted, but I guess we do and wheel chairs are pretty expensive and if you live in a country where the average income is not very high and I guess many of the people who in those countries are on the lower end of the income scale, probably do need wheel chairs so that's a very, strikes me as a very practical kind of thing where you can actually visualize the people benefiting at the other end. And I guess these, to ask a sill question, these wheel chairs do go to the people who need them, they aren't resold and with the proceeds going to someone else? John - No, we've seen the videos of other clubs who've done the same sort of thing and when you see people actually walking on their hands in order to get somewhere and then the next time you seen them they are in a wheel chair it's quite dramatic. Steve - Well thank you very much gentlemen. I think it's given us a bit of a survey, a portrait of what the Rotary club does here. Frank - Can I just follow up on what?
Steve - Yeah, please.
- I just want to follow up on one of John's comments. One of the nice things of working with Rotary internationally is that we work with clubs at the local country. So one of the ways we make sure that the deeds we do are carried into effect is by working with the local Rotary club so they make sure the wheel chairs get there they need. They make sure that if the well is built that it's for the people that need it. And that's really one of the strongest ties that you don't really notice at first with Rotary because you're looking at the works at the local level. But as you look, as you get to travel and see what we're doing around the world, it's amazing the difference what just a few dedicated, hard working people can do connecting with other people. And one of the things John mentioned in terms of when he joined the club and how he was inspired, was the same when I joined. We had just one of the first programs we talked about was the polio plus campaign where we were talking eliminating polio which was world wide at that time and one of the speakers we had come was one of our members' wives who was a polio victim and she was in a wheel chair. And she came and talked about her experiences as a child being, you know, staying in an iron lung at the hospital with, showed pictures of a whole hospital ward full of iron lungs which was inspiring enough. But more inspiring was her father who came and described his reaction and just from that one talk that they gave to us, it inspired every member of our club to get out and raise funds and that brought the club together more than any other project that I've seen. And that resonated on a global level where Rotary has been one of the major players involved in eliminated polio world wide to the point now where if polio isn't fully eliminated, it almost is. And that came from the power of individuals working together.
Steve - That's a very interesting story. Does anyone else something they would like to contribute? I've sort of been leading the conversation but if there are some other comments or stories that, here, I'll move around? Theresa - I'm just going to follow up on the question you had asked about international conferences and I've had the opportunity of going to two of them, one in Texas, and the other in, more recently, this last year, for our Rotary's 100th celebration at their centennial convention in Chicago. There were 55,000 Rotarians in Chicago from 128 different countries at this convention. And yes, the main language was English. But it was absolutely phenomenal. All these people from all different walks of life, from every corner of the earth getting together and celebrating and learning more about what Rotary does and the opportunities out there. So they do have an international convention on a yearly basis and as I said this last one was in Chicago. Next, this year is in Copenhagen and the following year I believe, is in Salt Lake City. But, thank you.
