 My
brothers and sisters in Rotary—good morning/afternoon/evening.
You know, we Rotarians, we talk a lot. We spend a lot of our
time talking. Whenever you go to a club meeting or a training
session or a district conference, I think it is safe to say that
you will not escape listening to a speech or even a few dozen
speeches. And if you’re in Rotary for any length of time
whatsoever, it is pretty much a given that you will be asked
sooner or later to give one yourself. And then you have the
humbling experience of spending hours putting together a gem of
oratory, polishing it to perfection in front of your bathroom
mirror, striding out onto the lectern full of confidence and
enthusiasm, and then watching your audience nod off somewhere
around paragraph number two.
Well, I’ve been a Rotarian
for quite a long time and I don’t want to think too much about
how many people I’ve put to sleep over all those years. But one
of the really great things about speaking to a group of Rotary
club presidents-elect is that you know that nobody there is
going to be falling asleep. Because all of you know that you’re
here for a reason. You’re here to learn how to be a Rotary club
president. And not just that. You’re here to learn how to be the
president of a great Rotary club—to build a stronger Rotary, a
stronger community, a better future for all of us.
We’re
here in Rotary for simple reasons, really. To help each other.
To do what we can. To try to increase, a little bit, the amount
of kindness and love and caring in the world. And none of us can
really know, today, just what the repercussions will be, down
the road, of the things we do. But I do believe absolutely that
what goes around comes around.
When we do good things
for other people, it doesn’t end with them. The effects ripple
on and on, and you’d be surprised how far. Well, those of you
who know me already know how much I love a good story, and today
I’d like to tell you one about a student at Stanford University,
in California, back in 1892. A poor but enterprising student
there decided to arrange a concert at the university by
world-famous Polish pianist Ignacy Paderewski. It’s a little
hard to imagine now, but back then, Paderewski was like Elvis,
so it seemed that the project couldn’t lose. It did, however—the
student was a good engineer, but a bad publicist, and he made
one grave mistake: he neglected to advertise the concert. And of
course, this meant no one showed up—but he still owed Paderewski
his fee, along with the fees for the concert hall and so on.
Well, of course the poor student was horrified when he realized,
and asked Paderewski not to play, since he couldn’t be paid. But
Paderewski did play, and when he had it explained to him what
had happened, he took pity on the poor fellow and paid the
concert’s bills out of his own pocket. Seventeen years later,
Paderewski became prime minister of Poland, in one of the worst
periods of Polish history, a time of terrible suffering and
famine.
And it was fortunate indeed for him that the
young man he had helped was named Herbert Hoover—and he had gone
on to become President of the United States. And Hoover had not
forgotten. When he visited Warsaw, he was met by twenty-five
thousand children, who had come to greet him—nearly all of them
barefoot. Within hours he telegraphed for help and 700,000
overcoats and 700,000 pairs of shoes were shipped to Poland
before the onset of winter. Another half million coats and shoes
were delivered in the following two years. By 1922, half a
billion meals had been provided, feeding two million people out
of ten thousand kitchens, all with food and equipment provided
by the Americans. And all of this happened because of the orders
of one American—who had not forgotten the kindness shown to him
by one Pole so many years before. Now Hoover was a great
humanitarian, and an orphan who felt deeply the suffering of
children. Perhaps he would have done it anyway. But one cannot
know.
One can never know where the good one does will
reach—we can only know that we should never miss a chance to do
another soul a kindness.
Nobody else is going to do it
for us. If we want there to be kindness in the world, we have to
put it there. Now, if we talk about caring for others, caring
for the world, usually you would understand this to mean that we
must look outward, toward others. But I, perhaps with my own
Indian perspective, see it differently. I would say to you that
if you want to care for others truly, fully, from your heart,
and in a way that will really make a difference—well, you have
to start with your own heart. You have to start by reaching
within yourself to find the strength and the love that you have,
and then bring that strength and love outward to share it with
others. And that is why our theme for the next Rotary year will
be, Reach within to Embrace Humanity. How will we do this? Well,
we will be guided by three emphases: the family; continuity; and
change. Our first emphasis will be the family, because the
family is where all our goals begin. If we wish to see a world
that is more joyous—we first have to make sure that the families
of the world are more joyous, that they have the things they
need to thrive and move forward.
Years ago, I had had
the privilege to work with Mother Teresa of Calcutta and I
remember her saying: at the end of our lives we’ll be judged not
by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have
made, or how many great things we have done. We will be judged
by: I was hungry, you gave me to eat, I was naked and you
clothed me. I was homeless and you took me in. And it was Mother
Teresa who said: the world is upside down and is suffering so
much because there is so little love in the home and in the
family life. Love begins at home – love lives in homes. In the
home, begins the disruption of the peace of the world. And this
is why I tell you today that it is in the home that we must
begin to work to rebuild that peace.
The family is the
building block of the community, and as the family goes, so goes
the nation. So we have to look at housing, at clean water and
sanitation, at health care, at all the issues affecting mothers
and children. For there to be a strong family there must first
be a strong and safe home—only then can there be health, hope,
and harmony within its walls. Our second emphasis will be on
continuity, on continuing and strengthening those things we do
well.
There are so many areas in which we have been
successful--working for clean, safe water; spreading literacy;
working in so many ways with the GeneratioNext, our youth. And
of course, our greatest project, polio eradication—where our
success has come slowly, but is no less certain. As the saying
goes, the difficult is done immediately—the impossible takes a
little longer. If we want to really achieve the impossible, we
have to keep at it—this is why I ask you to focus in your
service on continuing the things we do best. Then, of course
there are always things that we can do better, things that we
should be changing, and things that we haven’t started working
on yet.
I believe we must have the wisdom and courage to see
these and identify them and engage ourselves in them. And so,
our third emphasis in 2011-12 will be change; and we start by
being the change we wish to see in the world. If we wish
environmental degradation to stop, if we wish to reduce child
mortality or to prevent hunger, we must be the instrument of
that change – and recognize that it must start within us, with
each of us. And to bring about these changes, we will need to
think in new and different ways, explore new ways of seeing. I
think it is a great thing for all of Rotary that we now have a
fifth avenue of service, the avenue of service to the new
generations. And this I think is something that absolutely every
single club has to be looking at—it needs to be something right
along with our other avenues of service, and every bit as
important as vocational service, international service and so
on. We have to be open to change here. We have to look at what
we are doing, why it’s not working, and how we can make it work
better.
How can we be more attractive to younger
members, who are so different in so many ways to the young
professionals of a generation or two ago? Because it really is a
challenge. Young professionals today, young businesspeople, they
are much more pressured than before. They aren’t able to take a
few hours out in the middle of the day for a lunch meeting. They
are working longer hours, spending much less time at home, and
every minute they have is precious. We have to show them that
Rotary is a good use of their time, a valuable use of their
time—something that will enrich their lives, deepen the meaning
of their days, something that they will want to be a part of.
And we have to come to them where they are—and for most young
people, where they are is on the Internet, on Facebook, on
Twitter and email and their Blackberries. A club that doesn’t
have a presence on the Internet simply doesn’t exist so far as
they are concerned. More than ever before, a club’s web page is
its public face—and it has to be a good one. And let’s look
ahead a little more, at the people who aren’t ready to be
Rotarians yet but will be one day—the Rotaractors, the
Interactors, the Youth Exchange participants and Ambassadorial
scholars. Every club should be sponsoring a Rotaract or Interact
club, every club should be involved in youth programs in some
way. And every one of us needs to stay in touch with these young
people, bring them in, mentor them.
I think we need to
bring back the idea of the Family of Rotary—the idea that we
have to look at our organization as we would look at a family,
with its generations and its branches and its responsibilities
for each other. A strong family, a bonded and joined family,
this is one in which the generations are comfortable together,
they get along together, they recognize that they all need each
other. And so it should be in Rotary. Why are we spending the
majority of our effort looking outside of our Rotary family,
trying to bring in new members to older generations, who might
be reluctant—when we have an enthusiastic and able younger
generation already, in our Rotaractors and Interactors? And so I
say we need to be bringing people in on that ground level, that
youngest generation, and then keeping them in the family.
Retention has to be not just for Rotarians, but for the entire
Rotary family. [pause] At the end of the day, why are we all in
Rotary? It’s because we love it, and it’s as simple as that. We
love the experience we have in Rotary—the fellowship, the
friendship, the good feeling we get from helping others, the
feeling that we are making things better, the feeling that we
are being useful. And these positive feelings are the things we
need to work on, to help build, to help strengthen for others.
understand that each one of us has a part to play, to perform,
to deliver. We cannot simply go back home from here saying, we
shall try our best. We need to commit ourselves absolutely,
fully, and say what I must do, shall indeed be done. And I tell
you, that each one of you will succeed because the resolve and
strength to do this- to do anything- comes within yourselves.
And so, I say today, first reach within yourself and move on
confidently, firmly, towards the targets you have set for
yourselves. Because the world needs Rotary, now more than ever.
Thank you.
Kalyan Banerjee District 7890 PETS 2011 |
