Thursday, August 27, 2009

Sharing the Magic of Rotary


Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Parry Sound
…for the week of August 24, 2009








Growing Rotary – Sharing the Magic


From – A Personal Collection of Ideas that Worked
By Mary Chapman, Rotarian

Rotary Club of Peachtree City, Georgia, District 6900, Zone 34
Mchapman19@comcast.net


...from Chapter 10 – Sharing the Magic – a short excerpt

Our Assistant Governors are a ready source of help for membership development. These are some of the things that AGs can do:

• Help local Club Presidents or Membership Chairs to write and evaluate their local club plan. It is easier to write a plan if you know you have a helpful person to share your excitement and challenges.

• Assist local club presidents to secure a membership program for membership month.

• Conduct meaningful induction ceremonies for the local club when requested.

• Provide monthly feedback to the Club President and Membership Chair about their club membership numbers and those of other clubs in the district.

• Present a special pin or other recognition to those club members who sponsor new members.

• Visit often, and ask about membership concerns before they become a crisis.

• Have a specific discussion about the resources available from RI for membership development.

• Encourage everyone to attend the District Membership Seminar.

Remember to include Rotaract Clubs in your membership development plan. They are an excellent source of new Rotarians. The President and Membership Chair should be copied on all relevant correspondence.

Make-ups. The following is a very good idea for creating an opportunity for a “make-up.”

Mary writes:


In my home club, one make-up opportunity is to support the Fayette Samaritans, our local help service for those in need, by bringing food and items like detergent and diapers. If a member goes to the store, buys $10 worth of needed items and brings them to the next meeting, they have participated in a sanctioned club project and the member is credited with a make-up. The Manual of Procedure allows a make-up for participation in a club service project. The Fayette Samaritans love us and our membership does, too.


About Mary Chapman


Mary Chapman joined Rotary in the spring of 1989 and has been an active members ever since. She has served on the District 6900 (Georgia) Membership development committee and has been active in the membership development of her own club for the last eight years.

She is the recipient of the District 6900 “Al Daniel Award for Membership Development” awarded annually to a club or individual for contributions to membership development. She is the only individual to ever receive this award. In 2001-2

Rotary Membership Development


Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Parry Sound
…for the week of August 17, 2009

Rotary Membership Development


Everything worth doing is easier and more likely to happen with a written plan.

You may have just been elected Club president or Membership Development chair, or maybe you just love Rotary and want to share it. Take a few minutes to write down your personal goal for membership during your year. This goal should be personal, not the generic “plus one” that is sent out to the whole world. What is appropriate and possible for your club if you work hard? How many projects could you complete that would make the world better if you had ten more people in your club? What will it take to get your club there?

Goals should be written in the present tense, as if they were already occurring, and they should include dates. For example: “Our club inducts ten members by March 31 of my Rotary Year,” or “Our club has a net growth of three members by June 3.” Do not worry about the number being too large.

The most easily met membership goal for my club was the year we were expected to induct one member per month. We wrote a plan, we worked hard, and we measured results. We thought about the goal, looked for prospective members, and found them everywhere. People respond to large and challenging goals, especially if there is support from the people “at the top.”

The most challenging year for our membership growth was the first year that the international goal was “plus one.” We had worked hard in previous years; but, no one bothered to write a plan. Without a plan, we did not work consistently and wound up having to identify and induct 20 members in one month to meet Rotary International’s goal. What we discovered was that prospective members were there all along just waiting to be asked to join Rotary.

• Take a blank piece of paper and write your membership goal at the top. Brainstorm and list ten ways that you can reach this goal.

• Spend one hour a day for a week reading in the membership section of the RI website.

• Implement at least one new idea in support of membership development that you have written down.

• Purchase and listen to Brian Tracy’s CD “Goals.”

• Put all of the new members who have joined your club in the last 12 months on your “Membership Development Committee.” Print some “stuff” from the RI membership Development Data Base at www.rotary.org and give them a manual. Put the club goals on the first page and list their names on the second. These people are new. They do not know that many Rotarians never sponsor anyone. They are the one of your best opportunities for success.

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Source: Growing Rotary – A Personal Collection of Ideas that Worked – Mary Chapman, Rotarian. (Director of Membership Development 2008-09, District 6900)


(If you would like a copy of this publication, either printed or on CD, please email mchapman19@comcast.net or call 770-241-4127.)

Rotary the Peacemaker


Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Parry Sound
…for the week of August 10, 2009


Rotary – the Peacemaker

A skeptic might ask: “How can Rotary be a real force for peace? It has no jurisdictional power. It is not a religion. It has no army or tanks, and it insists on being non-political.”

Such a viewpoint looks at peace as something that can be ordered or militarily enforced, as if it is only the responsibility of governments.

Rotary has always approached peacemaking systemically – it has sought to break down the barriers that cause people to point fingers at one another. By trying to understand people’s points of view, and reaching across lines of race, religion, and culture to become partners in service to all mankind, tensions are reduced and friendships are increased. Humanitarian aid has been Rotary’s answer to hunger, sickness, illiteracy, and economic disaster, the seeds of conflict.

In April 1945, Rotary was in the forefront of arguably one of the most important meetings of the 20th century: the finalizing of the charter of the United Nations in San Francisco.

The UN Charter Conference was the ultimate meeting of world leaders. They gathered to establish how future international disputes would be resolved; governments sent only their highest-ranking ministers, their very brightest minds to San Francisco.

Rotary was invited to attend as one of the observer organizations. There being few UN staff at the time, these 23 Rotarian observers guided agendas, performed translations, suggested wording for resolutions, and helped resolve disputes between delegates. Rotary provided 11 official observers to the U.S. delegation alone – only one other organization had more than three.

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Source: Forward, David C. A Century of Service – The story of Rotary International.

What some have to say about Rotary


Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Parry Sound
…for the week of July 27, 2009

What some have to say about Rotary –

“For 75 years, Rotarians have been ‘torchbearers,’ lighting the way to a better life for many people in many countries. Like Olympic runners, we received a torch from those before us – a torch of service that brings light to the shadow areas of mankind: intolerance, ignorance, disease, and hunger…Let people know that Rotary cares – and acts.”

-- James L. Bomar, Shelbyville, Tennessee, USA (RI president, 1979-80)

“Hope is the expectation of better things – a polio-free world, a world without hunger, universal peace. It is the spark that keeps a man going, whatever his station. Without it, life is nothing more than existence in despair.”

-- M.A.T. Caparas, Manila, Philippines (RI president, 1986-87)

“The contribution of Rotary is more than money. It is the commitment of individual Rotarians to polio eradication which has made this initiative a unique collaboration between the public and private sectors.”

-- Hiroshi Nakajima, director-general World Health Organization

“Of all the partnerships that we developed while I was at the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), none has been more impressive than the partnership with Rotary International and the other partners working on the global eradication of polio.”

-- Dr. David Satcher, former CDC official and Surgeon General of the United States

“Rotary has won a place of respect in the global village – in fact, Rotary has helped make the world a global village.” (Rotary International was the first organization to be awarded UNICEF’s Audrey Hepburn Child Advocate Award in 1995).

-- Carol Bellamy, executive director, UNICEF (1995 RI Convention in Nice, France)

“People everywhere – each of them our cousins by blood – want peace…But people draw distinctions about nations and races different from their own, which give rise to suspicion and distrust. I urge each of you as a Rotarian to bring to a club meeting a non-Rotarian who is of a different race, a different generation, or social background.”

-- Hiroji Mukasa, Nakatsu, Japan (RI president, 1982-83)

“Into the hands of the United Nations we have placed the heritage of freedom for which countless generations of people have struggled. We depend upon the UN to pass that heritage on to generations yet unborn…Each of us can help strengthen the UN…in his own home… in his own community…The United Nations is an instrument that we can use for demonstrating far and wide the opportunities for service.”

-- Angus S. Mitchell, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (RI president, 1948-49)

Bridges of friendship could be built
Where in war men’s blood was spilt
Bridges built in Rotary’s way
Bridges built to speed the day
When peace and concord will hold sway
That man may reach his long-sought goal
Neighbors all from pole to pole
One human race with ties that bind
One humane world, one humankind.

-- From After All by Harold T. Thomas, Auckland, New Zealand (RI president, 1959-60)


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Source: David C. Forward. A Century of Service. The Story of Rotary International. Copyright 2003 Rotary International.

Rotary is Alive and Well all over the World


Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Parry Sound
…for the week of July 20, 2009

Rotary is alive and well all over the world.

District 7780 (with 41 clubs and over 1900 active members from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine) is offering a GSE Exchange with India. Each club can select applicants for the GSE Team and submit them to the District.

Rotary Club of NewburyPort. One club in District 7780 is representative of so many others around the globe. The Rotary Club of NewburyPort meets on Tuesdays at 12:15 noon in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

• As a point of interest, to make sure that this club is having fun while they serve, they intend to focus on fellowship, fun and the family of Rotary throughout the year.

• They have even created a new Director position: the Director of Fun and Fellowship!

• One of their great fund-raisers is The Rotary Club of Newburyport's Famous Chicken Barbeque. Doesn’t that sound delicious? They even have a secret sauce and hand the recipe down from year to year – the best-kept secret!

Group Study Exchange

The Rotary Club of Newburyport also supports the Group Study Exchange. They have advertised for qualified applicants and accepting applications from qualified applicants for Rotary District 7780's Group Study Exchange with India, which will take place in January and February 2010.

The Group Study Exchange Program of The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for young business and professional men and women between the ages of 25 and 40.

The program provides travel grants for teams of participants to exchange visits between paired areas in different countries.

• For four weeks, team members will study the host country's institutions and ways of life, observe their own vocations as practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.

• Team members may come from corporations, small business, community organizations, medical and educational facilities, government offices, and nonprofit agencies.

The program is designed to have an invaluable impact on the career of a young professional in the increasingly global workplace.

• For employers, GSE enhances the international perspective, communication and collaboration skills, and global awareness of the next generation of young business and professional leaders.

• GSE team member applicants must be between the ages of 25 and 40; fully employed with at least two years of work experience in their chosen field;

• They must be in the early stages of their careers or professions; reside in or be employed in the sending Rotary District; be personable, articulate, cooperative and motivated team players who are enthusiastic about their vocations.

• Team applicants may not be Rotarians or the spouse or child of a Rotarian.

The Newburyport Rotary Club has recently hosted GSE Teams from Poland and the Philippines. Two years ago, the Newburyport Rotary Club sponsored local resident, Christin Walth, who participated in the GSE exchange to the Phillipines, and had a fabulous experience.

For each team member, The Rotary Foundation provides the most economical round-trip air ticket between the home and host countries.

• Local Rotarians in the host area provide for meals, lodging and group travel in their district.

• Each team member is responsible for his own personal and incidental expenses, including any personal travel arranged after the exchange.
In January 2010, four young professionals and a Rotarian team leader from District 7780 will have the opportunity to spend four weeks as a GSE team in Rotary District 3030 in India.

• District 3030 is in the state of Maharashtra and includes the towns of Nasik, Jalgaon, Akola, Amravati, Chadrapur and Nagpur.

• Major attractions include wildlife sanctuaries, cave temples and carvings, and the world heritage sites of Ajanta and the Ellora caves.

Applications must be submitted through a local Rotary club, which then forwards the application for review and approval to the District Selection Committee. Additional information about GSE may also be found at www.rotary.org.

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For District 7020 –
District 7020 Team arrives in District 7610 (Virginia) on April 3, 2010
District 7020 Team returns home to Jamaica on May 3, 2010

More information will be forthcoming about District 7020 GSE teams as I learn it.

Onwards and Upwards! Fundraising for a good cause!



Weekly Elixir – Rotary Club of Parry Sound
…for the week of July 13, 2009


Onwards and upwards! Fundraising for a good cause!




Just as many participate in a Relay for Life (for cancer), Anguilla – and even all of the Caribbean – could begin a Relay for Diabetes Awareness – organizing a similar type of event.


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Relay For Life (often shortened to Relay) is a fundraising event of the American Cancer Society, and is now held in many other countries. It is an overnight event designed to spread awareness of cancer prevention, treatments and cures, celebrate survivorship and raise money for research to find more cures for cancer. In 2007, Relay For Life raised over $405 million. The largest per capita fundraiser for a college or university is Loyola College in Maryland.

The Canadian Cancer Society Relay For Life is more than just a fundraiser. It is an opportunity to get together with family and friends and celebrate cancer survivors, remember loved ones lost to cancer, and fight back in the hope of finding a cure for this terrible disease.

Relay is fun, fulfilling, and your participation gives strength to our mission to eradicate cancer. The walk is an inspirational 12-hour overnight event as we come together and fight to make cancer history.

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…from www.diabetesvoice.org...

The people of the Caribbean region are facing a serious threat to health which will potentially overwhelm healthcare systems in the small and relatively poor countries of the region.

It is estimated that by the year 2010, the number of people with diabetes in the Caribbean will reach 20 million. Diabetes prevalence in the area is projected to increase to approximately 25% of the adult population.

Debbie Jones (Coordinator of the Diabetes Centre and Coordinator of clinical trials at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, Hamilton, Bermuda. She is a Vice-President of the International Diabetes Federation) reports on a training initiative which is aimed at reducing this health burden through the development and promotion of diabetes education programmes in the Caribbean region.

The Declaration of the Americas on Diabetes (DOTA), a coalition of diabetes-related organizations which was founded in 1996 by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), advocates the promotion of diabetes education for people with the condition.

DOTA recognizes that diabetes education is an indispensable aspect of treatment in order to ensure the active participation of people with diabetes in the control and effective treatment of their condition. In many countries in the Regions of South and Central America and North America, diabetes education programmes are nonexistent.


From http://www.paho.org...

The prevalence of diabetes is increasing globally. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the forecast from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that the prevalence of diabetes will increase from 34 million in 2000 to 64 million in 2025.

Diabetes is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among the elderly and it is known to increase disability and premature mortality. Given the ageing process taking place in most developing countries, diabetes will soon become a demand health problem.

The cost of diabetes in Latin America and the Caribbean was estimated at $65 billion in 2002.

World Diabetes Day, November 14th, is the primary global awareness campaign for those involved in diabetes. The number of individuals with diabetes mellitus in Anguilla is escalating and the entire population must be made aware of this, as well as the consequences of this on the entire population. The theme of World Diabetes Day for 2008 is “Diabetes in young and Adolescents.”


From http://www.festival.ai...

Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood, and type 2 diabetes in children is becoming a global public health issue with potential serious outcomes. The number of children and adolescents in Anguilla with diabetes is increasing rapidly, and it is hoped that focus on diabetes will raise awareness of the disease as well as help individuals to recognize the signs in children and how to prevent complications. It is hoped that individuals will be encouraged to live healthy lifestyles to help prevent type 2 diabetes in children and adults as well.

Diabetes can strike children of any age, even toddlers and babies. If not detected early enough in a child, the disease can be fatal or result in serious brain damage. Yet diabetes in a child is often completely overlooked: it is often misdiagnosed as the flu or it is not diagnosed at all. Children and adolescents with a strong family history of diabetes should be screened for diabetes.


Types of Diabetes Mellitus


Diabetes Mellitus occurs as a result of problems with the production and supply of the hormone insulin in the body. The body needs insulin to use the energy stored in food. When someone has diabetes they produce no or insufficient insulin (type 1 diabetes), or their body cannot use effectively the insulin they produce (type 2 diabetes).

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that cannot be prevented. Globally it is the most common form of diabetes in children, affecting around 500,000 of them under 15. However, as a result of increasing childhood obesity and sedentary lifestyles, type 2 diabetes is also increasing fast in children and adolescents. Type 2 diabetes has been reported in children as young as eight and reports reveal that it now exists in children thought previously not to be at risk.


Signs and symptoms of diabetes mellitus in children and adolescents

Children and adolescents with type 2 diabetes might have few or no symptoms of diabetes. The following symptoms and signs might be present:

• Frequent urination
• Excessive thirst
• Increased hunger
• Weight loss
• Tiredness
• Lack of interest and concentration
• Blurred vision
• Vomiting and stomach pain (often mistaken as the flu)

Prevention and management

We are not show what are the main causes for the increasing number of children and adolescents who develop diabetes in Anguilla, but the fact that more children and adolescents are overweight and obese might be a leading factor. Much more must be done as a community to address the growing problem of overweight and obesity in our young children and adolescents. Parental involvement is crucial if our children and adolescents are to develop healthy lifestyles.

Once children and adolescents are diagnosed with diabetes, they should monitor their blood sugar regularly to help control their diabetes. Prevention of complications of poor glucose control is very important. Proper diet, regular exercise and adherence to medications are key to allowing individuals with diabetes to live successful lives. All individuals with diabetes should have regular medical check-ups as well.


Conclusion


Diabetes is a growing health problem in Anguilla. The number of children and adolescents with diabetes is increasing at alarming rates. We must do more to prevent diabetes from developing and for those with diabetes we must promote measures to prevent complications of poor glucose control.

Ask Your Doctor is a health education column and is not a substitute for medical advice from your physician. Dr. Brett Hodge is an obstetrician/gynaecologist and family doctor who has over twenty years in clinical practice.

Dr. Hodge has a medical practice in the Johnson Building in The Valley.