|
 Kalyan
Banerjee's address to the RGHF annual meeting 2011
(read president Banerjee's concerns about Rotary's future,
and the relevance of history)
Rotary Global History Fellowship
My dear brothers and sisters in Rotary!
It's such a pleasure to be here this morning, and to be
receiving this honor from all of you. I am of course a very
proud member of the Rotary Global History Fellowship,
and when I was planning my remarks for this morning I wanted to
do justice to the occasion with some appropriate historical
references. So I was thinking a bit about what is probably the
most famous line out there having to do with history: that those
who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
But then it occurred to me that in Rotary, perhaps it might be
the other way around—that those who forget our history will not
get the chance to repeat it, or at least, to repeat its success.
Our first century in Rotary was a fantastic time of growth and
development, of the spread of the Rotary movement throughout the
world—more clubs, more members, almost every year. It was a time
of great ambition and vision, of a sense of limitless
opportunities and potential.
And that is something
that we want to keep on with, of course, in our second century.
We want to find ways of bringing out that Rotary excitement and
enthusiasm, to bring it forth into our clubs and communities.
These days we talk a lot in Rotary, as much as we ever did, but
I think that we should be talking more about our history. We
should be looking more at how and why Rotary had such great
growth for so many decades. Because we all know that we're not
on that fast-track trajectory these days, and perhaps looking at
our history a bit more would help us to understand why, and even
reverse that trend.
You know, there are not many things more inspirational in Rotary
that looking back at the writings of Paul Harris. Now, I know I
am in the company of some of the world's leading experts on our
first president, and I had thought to browse a bit through some
of my predecessor's travelogues to find a quote or a story to
use here. Well, I can warn you right now of the dangers of
sitting down after lunch on a Sunday and opening up some of
those writings, thinking it'll only be a few minutes! The next
thing you know your wife will be calling you for dinner, you'll
have completely forgotten what you were looking for and you'll
be on the edge of your seat wondering whether anyone will
actually be there to meet the Harrises at the train station in
Latvia!
But if you're fortunate, as I was, you'll also find that you've
stuck in a lot of bookmarks along the way. And so you'll have a
few good quotes to use, such as this one:
"Individual efforts when
well directed can accomplish much, but the greatest good must
necessarily come from the combined efforts of many men.
Individual efforts may be turned to individual needs but
combined effort should be dedicated to the service of mankind.
The power of combined effort knows no limitation."
And really, that's it, isn't it? That's what is behind Rotary
service—that idea, that when we get together, all of us, there
is no limit to what we can do.
Our history gives us so much to be proud of. It shows us how
noble Rotary is, how ambitious, how truly great. And I think all
of us, history buffs or not, would do well to remember that.
Well, I think I've spoken long enough, and we all have a very
full day ahead of us. So I will just close by thanking you again
for making me part of the history of Rotary Global History
Fellowship. I wish you a wonderful rest of this Rotary
convention—and I look forward to seeing every one of you next
year at the 103rd Rotary International Convention in Bangkok.
Thank you.
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