Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA:

A Challenge of “Close” and “Global”

There is a challenge today that mirrors what Paul Harris discussed at the 1914 Houston Convention when he said: “The power of Rotary is shrouded in expectant mystery.  It will be for you, my new Rotarian friends, to aid in the unfurling of the Rotarian destiny.”  If Harris lived today, he would throw down the glove of challenge to the new Rotarians of the Rotary eClubs. 

Use of Technology: Forum and Emails on Internet, plus Telephone, as a vehicle for communication for members. In most cases, there is not personal contact and what is produced can become public. Also, what is produced can be edited, revised, reviewed and adopted as policy and practice.* 

*It is important to note that some of the observations and ideas expressed here are generated by this author and not the organization of RECSWUSA and Rotary International (although some concepts and ideas are generated and endorsed by other members).

To understand this challenge that Rotary International has cast upon Rotary eClubs all over the world, it is useful to look at one example in depth: Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA (of which I am a new member).* We will examine some of the tools that RECSWUSA has created to meet this challenge and some of the ideas that have been explored. To see a parallel search for an answer to what an internet organization should be, let us look at the brokerage and financial management company of UBS:

“U Be uS” is an interesting concept that comes from a company’s commercial advertising. UBS is where finances are kept global, universalized and left to increase. What is interesting about UBS is that it is a worldwide company with a commercial that says, “What we stand for is two things: “you” and “us”. Some very bright ad person came up with the obvious, “you be us,” psychologically linking that assumption from UBS. Recently, they have changed slightly (while still saying, “you be us”) by telling their present and prospective customers that UBS is two places: “anywhere” and “beside you”. “Anywhere” makes them global; “beside you” makes them available as a partner. Notice that they use the “B” word, “beside,’ instead of “near” or “next to”. The reasons why I am examining this commercial are: 1) I am interesting in how good businesses sell their image and 2) RECSWUSA could learn from this very successful Swiss banking company that has taken a share of the brokerage business by storm (through quiet and tasteful public relations and service).

I see RECSWUSA, our eClub, as a fledgling UBS (that is “anywhere” and “beside you” plus “you” and “us”). We are “anywhere” (local and global) plus through our internet interactions and fellowship “beside you” (also by helping with services local and worldwide) so that we are partners above self. If these assumptions are “the truth”, then an “eClub” will become viewed in its evolution as truly “everywhere” and “close”. The everywhere is easy since we were created to use the tool of the internet. What is hard is the “close” part. For that, we need to communicate with each other in fellowship and learn about each other (while still keeping the security of privacy) so that we can be true “partners in Rotary”. To do all this, we do not have to reinvent the “gear” for Rotary. What we must do now is view other organizations and businesses where they are spending millions on advertising to do what we were created to do: be a club that is “close” and be Rotary that is “everywhere” and “local” at the same time. We are not just the Pepsi Generation (just for the young) since we embrace new and older Rotarians.

Since the challenge of creating a working internet eClub for Rotary has set a time limit of 2010, members have been tossing around ideas over their forum and emails:

eClubs: How Might They Work?

Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA: Thoughts, Comments and Visions

Morning: It is 6:00 am on Galveston Island, partners with the sea, on the third floor of a light blue and white beach house that my daughter’s family rented for the weekend and invited us along for the rest. Two fountains in a man-made lake are the constant sound that permeates the gentle-wind-moved air. I sit extremely silent and still, sharing my space with a sea crane that landed on the railing and is now gingerly walking toward its end, placing one elegant leg in front of the other in slow motion, like a Tai Chi master. He reaches his take off point, hesitates a moment and then takes flight. Recently my thoughts have been upon one member’s challenge for the Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA, of “How?” The “how” has much to do about participation and fellowship. And my answers come like the sea crane walking gingerly with slow steps before attempting any flight.

Beginning Thoughts: Some things are obvious to me: 1) there are advantages and disadvantages to an eClub:

2) There are a few examples of success with eClubs (or similar organizations):

• business models (green $ across borders)

• cultural and artistic models (ideas across borders)

• philanthropy models

• terrorist models

• intelligence models

• educational models

Note: What each of these models has in common are ideas coming from a central core and an independent action (workers or cells of workers). It is the quality circles model that was begun within 20th century businesses. 

3) We know some answers to “how” of “what”:

 “eClubs are:

for people who cannot take part in “regular” Rotary clubs, for reasons of  geography or time or other limitations.

able to offer a different kind of Rotary experience and participation for Rotarians.

 Some examples and ideas through emails:

• “…we need to start within our own group and then “grow” outward.

• …to form groups that get to know each other through discussions, passing

• along a “getting to know you” chart, or by setting up a text-messaging meeting

• …do community projects “online” that are a continuation of on-ground.

• …assigning a partner…to assist them in getting involved.”

“We had a discussion board with a different topic each week (for an online course). Every member…was expected to write something and then each…were to read and respond. This created some nice fellowship and knowledge sharing…”

 “Yes, but…the “but” for me is not the meeting of minds, the conversation, the acquaintance- although the number of our members who have never made a posting on our club forum is depressing and you cannot have fellowship if only one half the group is actually talking.”

 An Observation:  Let me start with two or three observations: 1) the initial image, the symbol for Rotary from a Paul Harris speech in the early 20th century is the “gear wheel”, 2) the “gear wheel” is a carryover from the late 19th and early 20th century “industrial revolution”, and 3) the “gear wheel” is made to do a mechanical job and to work with other gears in a larger machine. We live in an information age, flattened by the internet so that individual minds and ideas can communicate, then hire others to do the “work”. In the 19th century, over 75 % of workers were unskilled; now 60%-70% in the Western countries are highly skilled. In Rotary it is 100%. I do not see the world today as a machine in motion, nor a chess board with kings, queens and pawns, but a centering of knowledge that spreads out like ribbons of waves around an enlightened circle. Most businessmen’s job descriptions today, like the head of Exxon, are “He plans for the future.” (“He” now is male or female). We hire the job out but find the resources, money, etc., to get the project, “the job”, done. Rotary is like the director of an opera. It assembles all the parts. 

If the eClub can help with the ideas and images, then we can do what Rotary does now: food, shelter, money for education, fight against disease, help for someone in need, etc.

Does all of this solve the query of “how” (meaning getting everyone behind something important)? Yes and No.

RI President Bill Boyd, in 2006 said: “Rotarians are not content to let matters stay the way they have always been… We are not content with the status quo, and we do not look at a problem only to say someone else will solve it. We are the ones who ask, “Why not us?” We are the ones with the skills and the desire to build a better future. And we are the ones who must Lead the Way.”

Rotary eClubs are the wave of the future. They allow skilled Rotarians the luxuary of choosing their own time, their own schedule for meeting in fellowship. In a “planted Rotary” club if you miss two meetings in a row the club’s membership committee warns the member that his or her membership is in jeopardy. With three missed meetings in a row, the member is dropped from the club. In an eClub making the meeting time is not the same therefore participation, prove that you attended, is the criteria for membership.

Idea: To get participation, like some members of eClubs ask for and give ways of having it, we have to 1) know who we are meeting with, 2) what they value in evaluating the meeting, and 3) what they can contribute to expand the ideas- use the ideas for projects and determine where the projects should be executed.

Some suggest that we share pictures of something that we have done that we are proud of doing. One member sent his mentor pictures of a flag stone patio because he did it himself (design and work). As a 74 year old artist, he was proud that he could pull it off physically/aesthetically and he admired looking at it afterwards. The Mentor sent back return pictures of his patio and garden. I sent a fellow member in Japan pictures of my visit to Galveston and how the water coming from a lighted fountain and the circles of small waves that were created made me think of the work that the eClub has to do in the future. He sent me two photographs of water that he had taken in a Shinto garden in Japan. The photograph told much about what these individuals’ value, how they view the world, what is important and something about their inner life. Those are the things that we all need to share to have participation and fellowship. No one opens up right away to a stranger. In an eClub, we all (except for those who live close to one another) are strangers and foreigners to each other. It is easy to play hide and seek in a virtual world. It is also easy to share. Robert Fulgham suggests the game of “Sardines” to replace “Hide and Seek”. In Sardines, we begin to share simple things (photos of our homes, our gardens, things we love to see- water, mountains, a loved one, etc., and then we share emails about our reactions to seeing them). What starts out as one member hiding and another find him or her, getting together with that person, becomes all the members together like Sardines, and we laugh together. Laughter is the beginning of something beyond “virtual”.             

Bill Boyd and Paul Harris asked, “Why not us?” to lead the way so the eClubs took up the challenge.

Paul Harris, 1917: “Rotary must make haste to even keep up. But we must do more, we must lead.”

Bill Boyd, Salt Lake City, 2006: “We are the ones who ask, ‘Why not us?’ We are the ones with skills and the desire to build a better future. And we are the ones who must lead the way.”   

It is only a beginning. I look forward to other sardines. If it does not work, then we need others to give ideas how to get this participation and fellowship working to give peace to  all the members in the eClub. Unless we are together as an eClub, projects will not work because we do not know all the skills of the members.     

The problem about “how” is not: “Our only boundaries are technical connections and time” as Matti Kivinen commented. It is inertia against what is new and holding onto the old as if the “old ways” are a life jacket for swimming in the internet ocean. Some guidelines are useful still, like Rotary Basics, but many of the ways that we achieve those goals are not. The world has changed. In Rotary Fellowship in an Electronic World, one eClub member wrote: “And for much of the past year I have felt like a brand-new Rotarian…The key to land-based clubs is attendance. The key to the new eClubs will be participation.” Since I joined RECSWUSA in June, I felt that way too. Many of us do, I think, no matter how many years you have been a Rotarian.

“In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met “Indians” and came home and reported to his king and queen “The world is round.” I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper, “The world is flat.”

 - April 3, 2005 Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times

Joseph Campbell, while he was alive and teaching at Sarah Lawrence University, kept an image of the globe on his wall from a photograph from space. He told his students “Follow your bliss” and remember that that image is your world today. 

We can even learn from terrorists (but our mission is constructive instead of destructive). Each of us in our local community is a cell member of a club that has guidelines but no borders. We take the guidelines and recruit friends to help us, making virtual ideas into life changing projects but those projects are not owned by the parent eClub (although the eClub helps find the resources to “get the job done”). That is participation. Then we share with the others in the club when the project is a success or failure so that the same mistakes or successful decisions cannot or can be duplicated.

Responsibilities: For any prospective members, RECSWUSA is working on creating documents that outline what it means to be a member of an eClub:

"What is Rotary? Thousands have made answers each in his own way. It is
easier to note what Rotary does than what it is. One recently has said, "If Rotary has encouraged us to take a more kindly outlook on life and men; if Rotary has taught us greater tolerance and the desire to see the best in others; if Rotary has brought us pleasant and helpful contacts with others who also are trying to capture and radiate the joy and beauty of life, then Rotary has brought us all that we can expect." Chicago, October, 1945 Paul P. Harris.

Mission: The mission of the Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA is to fulfill the challenge offered by Rotary International to create a new kind of “Rotary club,” one that meets in virtual space, communicates on the web in real time, joins together with fellow eRotarians to give service across borders and regions of the world and accepts qualified new members from anywhere and everywhere (while sustaining a balance of classifications).

Being part of this mission is not easy since one must regularly communicate to serve and serve to communicate. To join an eClub is more than attendance; it is a constant decision-making process where ideas and visions are shared individually and collectively.

Responsibilities of eClub Membership:

The club, whether it is a “terra club” or an “eClub”, is the cornerstone of Rotary, where the most meaningful work is carried out. All effective Rotary “terra clubs” and “eClubs” are responsible for four key elements: sustaining or increasing their membership base, participating in service projects that benefit their own community and those in other countries, supporting The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International financially and through program participation, and developing leaders capable of serving in Rotary beyond the club level.

What Rotarians get out of Rotary depends largely on what they put into it. Membership requirements in RECSWUSA are designed to help members more fully participate in and enjoy their Rotary eClub experience.

Process for Membership Acceptance: 1) simple application with digital photograph; 2) introduction phase of acceptance: reading some information about RECSWUSA, answering questions in the “get-to-know-the-prospective-member-better” period, and writing an introduction that will be place (with the digital photograph) on the eClub’s forum; 3) acceptance into RECSWUSA: working with a mentor to learn about the forum, projects, service possibilities, how to use the internet for communications and other useful information that would lead to goodwill, fellowship, service and rewarding experiences.

Attendance: Internet attendance allows eClub members to enjoy their club’s weekly messages and programs, to build by email and contributions to the Forum their club’s fellowship, expand and enrich their professional and personal knowledge, and globally
“meet” other business leaders in other countries/regions with other useful points of view.

The regular weekly meeting of this club is defined as occurring anytime during the meeting “window”, that is between the hours of 8AM on Monday and 11:59PM Fridays. The most recent eight meetings are always readily available to assist members in making up a missed meeting or to review a past meeting. This also provides more options to visiting Rotarians. All members are expected to maintain attendance requirements as established by Rotary International and reflected in our constitutional documents.

Participation and communications: Since Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA, is a new adventure for Rotary (a pilot project until 2010), it is critical to the life of the eClub that members let other members know who they are, what they do, what are their dreams and hopes for the future, what pleases and displeases them, what projects set their passions aflame for participation, and what they expect to gain from membership with RECSWUSA. This means that “participation and communications” is the essential element in membership in the eClub (just as attendance is the critical ingredient in any “terra Rotary club”). How the participation and communications are done can be determined by the individual eClub member but “PARTICIPATION AND COMMUNICATION” are the cornerstones of a successful Rotary eClub. Therefore keeping members interested in the Rotary eClub is a good club’s responsibility therefore fellowship, information, good weekly programs, opportunities to voice opinions on the RECSWUSA’s website Forum and projects (that spans the world as well as the local community where the member lives).

RECSWUSA’s Composition: The ideal composition of a Rotary eClub reflects the world’s demographics, including professions, gender, age, and ethnicity. Such diversity enriches every aspect of the club’s global fellowship and service.

Object of a Rotary eClub: The object of a Rotary eClub is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise (through the mottos of “service about self” and “service without borders”) and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

First: The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service (this can mean in a Rotary eClub the member expands his communications to a worldwide membership);
Second: High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying of each eRotarian’s personal, business, and community life;
Third The application of the ideal of service in each eRotarian’s personal, business, and community life:
Fourth: The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the idea of “service above self” and “service without borders”.

To accomplish these principles of Rotary for an eRotarian means that he or she allows themselves to be known worldwide to the other eRotarians, communicates ideas, wishes, dreams and comments through the instrument of the Rotary eClub’s forum, and actively serves on committees and volunteers for eClub special projects (as well as contributing volunteer hours to club, community, vocational and international services). The one principle where an eClub has a slight advantage over a “terra” Rotary club is with the fourth principle of “international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship.”

To join a Rotary eClub is to admit that the (air)waves on the internet is “water” and we, as dedicated eRotarians, are the “fish” who enjoy swimming in it.

“Now that I am returning to places with many local clubs, I will stay
with this club, because it is not simply a way to remain a Rotarian -
but that was certainly how I saw it when I started. It is its own entity in Rotary and I am constantly stimulated at the growth and change and challenge and discovery - it ain't easy, if you do it right.” Fr. John Sheehan, Jesuit Priest, joined RECSWUSA on August 23, 2005, Kwalalein Atoll, Marshall Islands, now moving back to the USA.

Special Questions on Joining RECSWUSA 12-1-2006

The Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA works best when members know other members therefore we ask more at the beginning of the membership process than normally is asked by a “terra” Rotary Club. These are: Questions to get to know you better for this Rotary eClub:

Since Rotary is an act of fellowship, a social organization in addition to its worldwide commitment to service, tell us a bit about your other activities in the society (including family activities if you wish).

Where did you get your education? What subject(s) impressed you most? What teacher gave you something to hold onto for life and what was it?

By what name do you want to be called when we email you? Dear “what”?

What do you like and know about Rotary - specifically?
What do you wish we could change in Rotary?
What kind of research have you done about Rotary eClubs before making contact with us? Read programs, forum comments and ideas, contact or know a present member, etc?

When you look out 5-10 years, how do you see your participation in
Rotary? Accomplishments? Family? Fellowship with other eRotarians?


Describe the most satisfying example of community service in which you have ever participated.

Tell us a little about the most satisfying aspect of your career?

How would you describe the best vacation ever taken? Where and when?

Write an introduction of yourself for a fellow eClub member to read to a group of 40 distinguished Rotarians (think about what is critical for you to include).

Tell us what you expect a Rotary eClub to be (beyond no physical weekly attendance at meetings) for you.

List any other information that will help the RECSWUSA membership get to know you better.


Application: The process begins with a simple asking for information on a normal member’s form (which has been tailored to a new Rotary eClub member):
Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA
Membership Application
“Service Without Borders”

(Some questions may not apply)

Personal Data:
Name:
Call name:
Address:
City/Town & Zip code:
Date of birth:
Anniversary:
Spouse’s name:
Children’s names and ages:

Rotary Information:
Classification:
Rotary office held:
Committee:
Email:
Telephone:
Home fax:
Mobile phone:
Business phone:
Business fax:
AIM and URL:
Joined Rotary:
Areas of expertise:
District experience:
Rotary ID Number:
Reason for joining our eClub:
Photo (digital please):

Questions:
What area of club activities are you interested in?

What would you like our eClub to do for you?

What type of service project interests you? What level can you participate? In person, online, etc?

Submission of this application establishes your approval for The Southwest USA Rotary eClub to contact your previous Rotary Club(s) to verify your current/previous good standing in Rotary, and/or to contact references provided by you. It also establishes that you agree to have your name submitted to the eClub BOD for approval and circulated to our eClub membership for comment, as required by RI and eClub governing documents.

The Orientation Committee has set up a mentor management process that ensures that each new member has a mentor. The Committee will monitor the progress of the mentor/member process, with committee members emailing the mentor regularly for reports on progress and process.

The Orientation Committee will outline (a) what we are asking each new member to do: to ensure the best results for communications and participation and (b) support our mentors in their guidance of the new member.


Even with all this, there is still conversations and ideas exchanged about what processes RECSWUSA should use in its daily business (since the nature of the organization is still in its formulative stage).

Stephen Shearin, President of the Rotary eClub of the Southwest, USA, wrote, as his philosophy of how to move forward on projects: “My personal experience with challenges encountered by people making changes is that they try to eat the whole burger in a single bite.

Some things require more of cold turkey approach, but creating too large of a goal for the first outing seems to lead to procrastination and ultimately failure to accomplish....”

Forum response by Joe Kagle: This is probably true of most people. That is the principle behind all those wise sayings of the past: crawl before you walk, start small before you think large, look before you leap, a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step, etc. All this is true of actions that are controlled by a limited-vision society but it is not the truth about inner visions that are long-lasting attempts which can be filled with action.

The scene in the house on London’s Whipple Street when Robert Browning comes courting Elizabeth Barret has its high point with Browning saying about one of his poems, “I love this poem but it is a colossal failure.” The future Mrs. Browning smiles and wisely comments, “Isn’t one colossal failure worth ten thousand small successes?” This simple statement is a shining light for those who wish to think “large”.

Efforts, like beginning Rotary in one small club in Chicago, started seemingly tiny on the surface but the dream of Rotary in Paul Harris’ mind’s eye was vast and embraced the world. In fact, it started with the “golden rule” tied to business professionals. Without this enormous concept, it could have been a regional “colossal failure”. My friend, Robert Wilson, dreamed of a play about the conflict in an idea, war being civil. Wilson began his vision in six countries with six productions where a few acts of his CivilWars epic were presented. It was to come together in LA as part of the 1984 Olympic Fine Arts Festival. He worked on it for six years, 12-14 hours each day, crisscrossing the world while flying between the various sites, drawing the layout for scenes at night on large sheets of paper, rehearsing/raising funds/telephoning possible donors during the day, and only stopping when a worker’s backstage strike halted the Rome segment a few months before it was to open in LA. At the same time, the director of the Olympics, withdrew needed funds (which had been promised toward the project after Wilson raised half the cost- which he did) and the nineteen-hour play never happened, never came together as one performance. To some, it was a “colossal failure” but the concept lived longer than the actual nonexistent production. The BBC filmed the effort and process of putting it together. Critics were on both sides of praise for the segments. Today, it is taught as a monumental concept for contemporary theater and has made Wilson’s reputation as a creator who has visions outside the realm of small efforts. Coleridge’s total dream of 700 lines of his poem, Kubla Khan, was realized in a little over 100 lines that he could remember. In terms of fulfilling that grand vision, it was again a “colossal failure” but there is not a Romantic poetry book without those few 100 lines. The concept of “peace on earth” through many religions is a failure if our sight is upon a majority of events in the world today.

How we begin journeys in life and/or business is, most of the time, by taking small steps but to complete any journey we must have a vision that keeps our feet moving, keeps the flame of passion glowing and alive. Of course, there are some who start their steps in the middle or jump to the end before retreating to fill in the path for others. Or the filling in of the gaps is done by other chroniclers. I believe that is what Rotary created with the eClubs. It is a vision by a few who saw that this mode of travel is what might make possible the principles that Rotary started with its humble beginning in Chicago. It is a distant vision that may turn into a “colossal failure” but isn’t this special “colossal failure” worth ten-thousand small successes! Some endeavors may not have time for small steps? Expecting eClubs to be “close in fellowship” and “global in impact and membership” is not a small vision to fulfill! What do you think? What tools in business or talents do you have that might help RECSWUSA fulfill this vision?

To be fair to Stephen Shearin and his warning about trying “to eat the whole burger in a single bite”, I did ask the attendant today at the front desk of the YMCA if I could tie one dollar to the lighted but undecorated tree in the entrance hall. It will be interesting to see in the next weeks until Christmas if that dollar is the tipping point to fill that tree with needed donations from others.



Recently, I was asked to work on a project to retain employees for a Houston company. This is a draft of an idea that I presented to a committee for that company:

Retention Pathways.

“People leave people, not companies.”

C Career development With clear paths, roles and rules
H Humor A job is a place where unmixed work and fun coexists
E Everyone Lives in a family of training and grooming of roles
V Vision, valued talent and victory “When the company wins, everyone wins.”
R Right people With realistic goals and objectives on every level
O Oversight and Direction From mentors
N Neighborhood Making all on the team part of decision-making

P Plain speech From respected managers (KISS, keep it simple sweetheart)
H Human emphasis One on one
I Intelligent leadership “Set course, push and step back”
L Luck and learning Right job-right person-right direction
L Love and balance Love to come to work and balance it with life
I Inspirational goals From inspirational leadership
P People people people Who share respect, enjoyment and justifiable praise
S Suitable Salary With a Safe and Stable Environment

“Making a difference, not just a living.”


Taking the same tact for RECSWUSA, I wondered what it should say:

RECSWUSA
“Service without borders”

R Rotary R.O.R.
Recruitment, Orientation and Retention of members
E Everyone lives in a family of communications and training for roles
C Challenge for the eClub organization to use the internet for Fellowship, Participation and Service
S Security and Safeguards for individual members without losing understanding and friendship
W Worldwide which leads to “villagization” and “global” thinking
U Understanding so that our closeness helps in our service to others
S Special People who use technology to its fullest for humanitarian goals
A Advantage and aims of Rotary objectives, principles and ideals for fellowship, goodwill and worldwide peace
 

“Making a difference, not just making meetings.”


The challenge for Rotary eClubs is real and present. It is up to new minds, new ideas and new ways of creating fellowship, participation and service through the tool of meeting on the internet. Paul Harris would have counseled the eClubs of today in similar words to what he said in 1917: “There are times in the lives of men when there is need of spiritualizing uplift of new friends, who see things from new angles.”

For many new Rotarians, this is the challenge that has been presented and the challenge that must be met to forward the historical aims, ideals and visions of Rotary’s fourth principle of fellowship, goodwill and peace. The Rotary eClubs are an extension of what Pulizer Prize winning reporter and author of “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century”, Thomas L. Freidman of the New York Times calls, “our 21st Century Flat World.” He comments, “When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, “Tom, finish your dinner- people in China are starving.” But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, “Girls, finish your homework- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.”

Friedman makes this comparison, “In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met “Indians” and came home and reported to his kind and queen “The world is round.” I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Luftansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper, “The world is flat.”

Long before Friedman named his flat-world message, Rotary International heard that whisper and created Rotary eClubs who would join together in internet fellowship to create worldwide service for people that they could not see and did not know. What has been learned by the Rotary eClubs is that to touch our “flat world” neighbors we need tools to find those in and outside of Rotary who wish to swim in the new waters of cyber, eRotary space, use its currents for communication and closeness, and join together with those on the ground (“terra” Rotary Clubs, other organizations and community leaders/workers) in humanitarian services that just may lead to a flat world of peace. eClubs need to recruit new visionaries, new innovators. The Chinese say that, “A walk of a thousand miles starts with the first step” and “Moving a mountain can be done with taking away small stones.” Rotary International has taken the first step by creating the concept and experiment of eClubs; now comes the challenge of seeing if these new fish can learn to swim in this flat ocean by using revised Rotary principles, ideas and ideals.

Once again, the world is in crisis. Rotary and eRotary Clubs are organizations that have in the past responded to other crisis’ with service to their communities. The WORLD is Rotary’s community today and as the Stanford economist Paul Romer so rightly says, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” So is a challenge!

Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Essays