1. Rotary E-Club of South Africa One
2. Enquiries & Contact Details
3. The Cost of Rotary
4. Membership
5. About Rotary www.rotary.org
6. Brief History of Rotary
7. Four-Way Test
8. Object of Rotary
9. Avenues of Service
10. Business and Professional Relations Among Rotarians
11. Administration
12. Our District 9370
1. Rotary E-Club of South Africa One
Rotary E-Clubs meet primarily online, rather than in person. These clubs function like a regular Rotary club with service projects, fundraising events, and fellowship opportunities. They enjoy all the rights, privileges, and
obligations of membership in RI.
What You Need to Know about Rotary E-clubs:
Rotary E-clubs are Rotary clubs that meet electronically. A 2010 Council on Legislation enactment recognized Rotary E-clubs as part of Rotary International, following a six-year pilot project. As of 1 July 2010, RI has 14 Eclubs, all of them chartered during the pilot. As of 1 July 2011 there were 35 Eclubs Worldwide and as at 1st March 2012 there were 58. By the 30th June 2013 there were 111 e-clubs. There are now 3 e-clubs in Africa.
How do E-clubs work?
E-club meetings are hosted on a unique website. The official meeting time is considered to be when the webmaster or club secretary posts the weekly TOPIC for discussion, but members may access the site at their convenience at any point during the week. E-Club members discuss the item and any other club business through the members dedicated Members Clubhouse feature on the website or by other means, such as email and the tried and tested telephone method. To respect the privacy of E-club members and member data, the Members Clubhouse is protected from public view. Although all Rotary E-clubs meet weekly and conduct business online, some E-clubs do meet in person [known as face-to-face] at various times throughout the year at service projects, quarterly or semi-annual dinners, or the RI Convention. Such meetings can enhance fellowship among E-club members; however, they’re strictly optional.
Who participates in E-clubs?
For business, professional, and community leaders who are unable to attend a weekly meeting in person (due to physical disabilities, location constraints, or busy schedules), the E-club option offers the opportunity to meet, conduct service projects, and participate in Rotary fellowship. From time to time, Rotarians who miss their regular Rotary club meeting may make up a meeting by attending an E-club meeting online, a valuable service for all members. As
of August 2010, 360 Rotarians located in 30 countries were E-club members. Of these, 146 had previously been members of Rotary clubs, including four past district governors. Membership in an E-club requires a basic Internet skills set, including the ability to navigate websites with ease. Members should also have a working knowledge of the principles of protecting privacy online, so that no club member compromises another’s sensitive personal information. In addition, it is critical that at least one of the founding members of the club be highly proficient in the design and maintenance of the club’s website. The member should be experienced in building a website that meets all of the technological requirements listed below.
What are the policies for E-clubs?
Rotary E-clubs are considered by the RI Board to be worldwide. While each Eclub is assigned to a district, members can come from any country or geographical area where Rotary maintains a presence.
For more on policies regarding E-clubs, refer to the Rotary Code of Policies and the Report of Action of the 2010 Council on Legislation.
What are the technical requirements?
Because the meeting venue is on a website, E-clubs must have:
- A dedicated website
- Online meeting software to host a meeting (see information on software available through Rotary’s partnership with Citrix Online)
- Private sections of the website that protect members’ online personal data and only members can access
- Online financial transaction systems for dues payments from members, contributions, and remittances
E-clubs are responsible for all costs associated with maintaining a URL and hosting their website on the Internet.
How do I join an existing E-club?
As with all Rotary clubs, membership is by invitation Contact one of the E-club members listed under item 2 or write on our Facebook page wall located on our website or simply complete the Membership Proposal form.
2. Enquiries and Contact Details
If you have any enquiry/questions regarding the Rotary family please contact either our Club President, or our Secretary, on the contact page here.
3. The Cost of Rotary
The cost of membership of the Rotary E-Club of South Africa One is payable half-yearly, in ADVANCE on 1st July and 1st January and covers:
Rotary International Dues
District Dues
Rotary Africa Subscription
Club Administration Dues
Subscriptions vary from Club to Club and the current Rotary E-club of South Africa One Half-yearly dues are included in the Proposal Form.
4. Membership
Rotary club members are part of a diverse group of professional and community leaders working to address various communities and international service needs. Through community service and other means, Rotary club members help promote peace and understanding throughout the world. Our members are our most important asset. They are the force that allows Rotary to carry out its many humanitarian efforts and achieve its mission.
5. About Rotary – Rotary International has an excellent website at http://www.rotary.org
Rotary is a worldwide network of inspired individuals who translate their passions into relevant social causes to change lives in communities. Rotary encourages high ethical standards in all vocations and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 33,000 Rotary clubs located in 200 countries and geographical regions. The world’s Rotary clubs meet weekly and are non-political, non-religious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.
The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today’s most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career
development.
The Rotary motto is “Service Above Self.”
The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International is a not-for-profit corporation that promotes world understanding through international humanitarian service programs and educational and cultural exchanges. It is supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and others who share its vision of a better world. Since 1947, the Foundation has awarded more than US$1.1 billion in humanitarian and educational grants, which are initiated and administered by local Rotary clubs and districts.
6. A Brief History of Rotary
The world’s first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, Illinois, USA, was formed on 23 February 1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to recapture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The name “Rotary” derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members’ offices. Rotary’s popularity spread throughout the United States in the decade that followed; clubs were chartered from San Francisco to New York. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents, and the organization adopted the name Rotary International a year later. As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving the professional and social interests of club members. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization’s dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its principal motto: “Service Above Self.”
During and after World War II, Rotarians became increasingly involved in promoting international understanding. In 1945, 49 Rotary members served in 29 delegations to the United Nations Charter Conference. Rotary still actively participates in UN conferences by sending observers to major meetings and promoting the United Nations in Rotary publications. Rotary International’s relationship with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) dates back to a 1943 London Rotary conference that promoted international cultural and educational exchanges. Attended by ministers of education and observers from around the world, and chaired by a past president of RI, the conference was an impetus to the establishment of UNESCO in 1946.
An endowment fund, set up by Rotarians in 1917 “for doing good in the world,” became a not-for-profit corporation known as The Rotary Foundation in 1928. Upon the death of Paul Harris in 1947, an outpouring of Rotarian donations made in his honour, totalling US$2 million, launched the Foundation’s first program — graduate fellowships, now called Ambassadorial Scholarships. Today, contributions to The Rotary Foundation total more than US$80 million annually and support a wide range of humanitarian grants and educational programmes that enable Rotarians to bring hope and promote international understanding throughout the world.
In 1985, Rotary made a historic commitment to immunize all of the world’s children against polio. Working in partnership with nongovernmental organizations and national governments thorough its Polio Plus program, Rotary is the largest private-sector contributor to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians have mobilized hundreds of thousands of Polio Plus volunteers and have immunized more than one million children worldwide. After 20 years of hard work, Rotary and its partners are on the brink of eradicating this tenacious disease, but a strong push is needed now to root it out once and for all. It is a window of opportunity of historic proportions.
Rotary is currently working on a programme, END POLIO NOW, to raise US$200 million [US$182 raised so far] to match US$355 million in challenge grants received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The resulting US$555 million will directly support immunization campaigns in developing countries, where polio continues to infect and paralyze children, robbing them of their futures and compounding the hardships faced by their families. As long as polio threatens even one child anywhere in the world, children everywhere remain at risk. The stakes are that high.
As it approached the dawn of the 21st century, Rotary worked to meet the changing needs of society, expanding its service effort to address such pressing issues as environmental degradation, illiteracy, world hunger, and children at risk. The organization admitted women for the first time (worldwide) in 1989 and claims more than 145,000 women in its ranks today. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Rotary clubs were formed or re-established throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
7. The Four-Way Test
THE FOUR-WAY TEST
Of the things we think, say or do:
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
Rotary also later embraced a code of ethics. One of the most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics in the world is the Rotary Four-Way Test. It was created by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor in 1932 when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy. Taylor looked for a way to save the struggling company mired in depression-caused financial difficulties. He drew up a 24-word code of ethics for all employees to follow in their business and professional lives. The Four-Way Test became the guide for sales, production, advertising and all relations with dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this simple philosophy. The Four-Way Test was adopted by Rotary in 1943 and has been translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of ways. Herb Taylor became president of Rotary International in 1954-55.
8. Object of Rotary
The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:
| First. | The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service; |
| Second. | High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society; |
| Third. | The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’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 ideal of service. |
9. Avenues of Service
Rotary’s Avenues of Service guide the work of every Rotary club:
- Club Service, the first Avenue of Service, involves action a member should take within the club to help it function successfully.
- Vocational Service, the second Avenue of Service, promotes high ethical standards in businesses and professions, recognizes the worthiness of all dignified occupations, and fosters the ideal of service in the pursuit of all vocations. The role of members includes conducting themselves and their businesses in accordance with Rotary’s principles.
- Community Service, the third Avenue of Service, comprises varied efforts that members make, sometimes in conjunction with others, to improve the quality of life of those who live within the club’s locality or municipality.
- International Service, the fourth Avenue of Service, comprises those activities that members do to advance international understanding, goodwill, and peace by fostering acquaintance with people of other countries, their cultures, customs, accomplishments, aspirations, and problems, through reading and correspondence and through cooperation in all club activities and projects designed to help people in other lands.
- Youth Service, the fifth Avenue of Service, recognizes the positive change implemented by youth and young adults through leadership development activities, involvement in community and international service projects, and exchange programs that enrich and foster world peace and cultural understanding. (SRCC 5)
10. Business and Professional Relations Among Rotarians
The 1989 Council on Legislation adopted a declaration for Rotarians in businesses and professions and it was revised at the 2010 CoL and approved by the RI Board in May 2011:
Business and Professional Relations Among Rotarians
The following declaration has been adopted for the use of Rotarians:
As a Rotarian engaged in a business or profession, I will
- Exemplify the core value of integrity in all behaviours and activities
- Use my vocational experience and talents to serve in Rotary
- Conduct all of my personal, business, and professional affairs ethically, Encouraging and fostering high ethical standards as an example to others
- Be fair in all dealings with others and treat them with the respect due to them as fellow human beings
- Promote recognition and respect for all occupations which are useful to society
- Offer my vocational talents: to provide opportunities for young people, to work for The relief of the special needs of others, and to improve the quality of life in my community
- Honor the trust that Rotary and fellow Rotarians provide and not do anything that will bring disfavour or reflect adversely on Rotary or fellow Rotarians
- Not seek from a fellow Rotarian a privilege or advantage not normally accorded others in a business or professional relationship
11. Administration
Rotary is organized at club, district, and international levels to carry out its programme of service. Rotarians are members of their clubs, and the clubs are members of the global association known as Rotary International. Each club elects its own officers and enjoys considerable autonomy in accordance with the RI Constitution and Bylaws.
Clubs are grouped into more than 500 Rotary districts, each led by a district governor who is an officer of Rotary International and represents the RI board of directors in the field. Though selected by the clubs of the district, a governor is elected by all of the clubs worldwide meeting at the RI Convention.
A 19-member board of directors, which includes the international president and president-elect, administers Rotary International. These officers are also elected at the convention; the selection process for choosing directors and the nominating committee for president is based on zones, each of which comprises approximately 15 districts. The board meets quarterly to establish policies.
While the Rotary International president is the highest officer of RI, the chief administrative officer of RI is the general secretary, who heads a staff of about 600 persons working at the international headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, USA, or in one of seven international offices around the world