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Rotary Global History
Fellowship: A Tool for Rotarians to Navigate the Future while Exploring
Rotary’s Past
To know is to grow. History is
the future. The proper way to move ahead when confronted with “How?” is a
resounding “Yes!”
“Yes!” begins with a mix of
ideas. No organization today can be discussed without using a collage or
gestalt means to explore its identity or existence. We see pieces (from the
past, in the present and from visionaries of the future) but finally realize
that there is a whole to the experience. Rotary Global History is
a collage, a gestalt: a mix of information, individuals, visions, technology
and the need to serve as Rotarians. Therefore, this essay will be a collage
of history mixed with ideas from many sources. Rotary Global History, like many Rotary organizations today who live much of their time
in virtual space, finds that the Internet is a complex tool.
 Warren
Buffet, once said: “You never know if a man is naked until the tide goes
out.”
Much of what Rotary Clubs, eClubs
and Fellowships do today is live on the Internet much or part of their
organizational existence. What is becoming more obvious as this Internet
existence goes forward is: It seems that over the Internet some of us open
up more, expose our shared humanity more, and then find ways to serve our
local communities and other communities “without borders” while some find
ways to hide. No one really knows how this new tool of communication, the
Internet, will impact one-on-one communication that should lead to
collective service, but we do know that it does and has.
Also in virtual space there is
the opportunity to hide “real” identity and create a “virtual persona.”
Maybe that will be the challenge: to learn the clues to separate “real” from
“imagined” identity. But isn’t that a problem even when you first meet
someone across a table at a luncheon meeting? It takes time to communicate
“reality” because human beings are so good at hiding and some live their
whole lives in a skillful game of “hide and seek.” A Rotarian’s answer to
“How to give service” is to reveal oneself and not to hide.
To see Rotary Global History, one must wear a special set of glasses called World Wise with
the intelligence that comes with that vision.
World Wise (this is a growing
21st century sense that has consumed business, politics, some
individuals and nations but it is still in its infancy):
most Rotarians live part of their lives today on the
Internet, fly anywhere in the world to make contacts and a deal, give
service across borders while breaking down barriers, speak through the
airwaves with like-individuals who have values that are universal for
humanity and use technology as an extension of self and ideas. Rotary has
created service providers who are trained in peace and conflict resolution,
going out to bring people together for the betterment of all and who see the
world through a satellite vision. They are Rotarians of the future (even as
they live in the present “now”). A sense of “world wise” is more than
action, more than thought, more than an ideal; it is a sense of global
understanding, a sense that issues are no longer just local but worldwide.
Rotarians are an integral and important part of that global village.
To know what Rotary Global History is and can do for Rotarians, one must look at the history
of the organization. Just the facts, man!
Rotary Global History is a “A Virtual Community” at
this address:
http://www.rotaryhistoryfellowship.org. It was established
11 October 2000. But the history behind its establishment is what makes
Rotary the service organization that it has become.
 To
know is to grow:
On the
evening of 23 February 1905, Paul Harris invited three friends to a meeting.
They were Silvester Schiele, a coal dealer; Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor;
and Gustavus Loehr, a mining engineer. Schiele and Harris, after dinner
together, met with the two others in Loehr's business office in Room 711 of
the Unity Building in downtown Chicago on Dearborn Avenue. Thus, the Rotary
movement was born and soon the Rotary Club of Chicago was formed. Rotary Global History
has the entire
story of ROTARY/One on its website.
On 23 February
2005, that movement celebrated its Centennial. For over one hundred
years, business
and professional people, around the world, have gathered weekly for
fellowship,
service, and
the “Rotary Ideal”. What do we know about those 100 years? Nearly one
million internet visitors each year are finding out “how it started,” on
nearly 3,000 pages of The “Rotary Global History” websites. Is
this history important? Rotary International past President Frank Devlyn on
20 June 2001, wrote to the Rotary Global History staff,
stating, "Your web site is an instrumental tool for those forward
thinking people who wish to learn from our history, in order to guide our
future."
One of our most
popular features of the project is a “History Minute” sent regularly
by email. “What Paul Harris Said”
http://www.whatpaulharrissaid.org
features
quotes from the founder’s writing with brief commentary and is used by clubs
around the world. We also feature “Why I am a Rotarian,”
http://www.whyiam.org
and “Our
Foundation Newsletter.”
http://www.ourfoundation.info.
In 2002, the
website began a project to collect the contributions and stories of the
“early leaders” of Rotary. A recent addition, with some history never
published before, is at
http://www.jeanharris.org
. This
web site includes the recollections of the first eight women district
governors, as well as a timeline for women regarding Rotary.History of
Rotary Global History (cont’d) March 2007 (with a revision on 1
April 2007.) Every president of Rotary International has a “home page” with
links to our project’s conventions, themes, theme graphics, home clubs,
tributes and other web pages related to each president. Please see:
http://www.presidentshistories.org
There are
histories of conventions at
http://www.conventionhistory.org
where you’ll also find all of the
presidents’ themes. Rotary Global History has become a point of
reference for all Global Networking Groups
http://www.globalnetworkinggroups.org
where
collection of those groups’ histories are being
preserved.
After this project was started by John M. Selway on 11 October of 2000,
contributions have poured in from hundreds of individual Rotarians, Rotary
clubs, districts, RI Directors past and present, RI Presidents past and
present and families and friends of the movement’s early leaders, from every
continent on earth except Antarctica.
Members have
access to the full forum and can respond and post. Membership is available
at
http://www.joinrghf.org
Visitors can
add comments at
http://www.historycomment.org.
There’s always
something new at the Rotary Global History. "This is a changing
world; we must be prepared to change with it. The story of Rotary will have
to be written again and again!" ~ Paul P. Harris, page 253, "This Rotarian
Age."
Rotary Global History is not just “the facts, man” but
ideas that have been expressed by individuals. Here is a collage of only a
few:
In December 2006,
Jack Selway, the Founder of RGHF, wrote: “Our total size, in mega bytes, on
the servers, is now at 970,000,000 bytes. Our accounts allow for
20,000,000,000 bytes. Lots of room to grow… Our largest account is
rotaryfirst100.org with about 750,000,000. To handle such a large file, I
created four sub webs earlier this year. They are: library, peace,
foundation, and women. rotaryhistoryfellowship.org,
archivohistoricoderotary.org, and whatpaulharriswrote.org make up the rest
of the space used, or available.”
But numbers are only the skin of Rotary Global History. They show growth and depth but do not display the reach of the
ideas behind the organization, the ideas that have been created by Rotarians
the world over.
In June 2008,
our current President for 2007-2009, Joe Kagle, wrote about his involvement
with Rotary Global History: “The LA Convention was fertile ground
for new members, now totaling 255 members (an increase of 20% over our
2006-2007 total), finding and recruiting district representatives, a search
for new webmasters, and networking with future Rotary International leaders
for sharing knowledge, finding areas of cooperation and cementing
relationships which will blossom in the years to come for RGHF and RI.
From sun up to sun down, we gave service in the booth, in the sessions and
in the halls. It was a productive, exhausting time (and we only had a week
to recoup our strength before our monthly 72-hour end-of-the-month Board of
Directors’ eMeeting.)
Since the Convention, Jack Selway, our CEO, has been busy
everyday writing to new, old and prospective members Our new member
orientation program, headed by Norm Winterbottom, our Secretary who will
head this initiative, has just started.
I am proud of YOU all who have helped our Executive
Committee and our Board of Directors to lead, to find solutions to complex
situations, to continue to explore new ways that our Fellowship can serve
Rotary and Rotarians the world over, and to look to the future (with jobs to
get done in terms of maintenance and protecting our valuable website so that
eight years of work is never lost because of technical problems.) We have
started to find webmasters in each Rotary district and region of our globe.
We have kept YOU in touch (informed) with what we have been doing and what
we plan to accomplish in the future. We know that SERVICE TO Rotary Global History is in your hands, with your assessment of your time, but
that will not deter us from asking for help.”
Every
successful organization starts with one number. That number is ONE, which
becomes TWO, etc. until it becomes a team of numbers. Those numbers then
elect a select number, a team of leaders to guide the discussion with the
members toward some goals that fulfill Rotary Global History’s
mission. Behind the numbers is mission, mission, mission. The mission is
centered around Rotary history.
Kagle wrote in the June newsletter:
“In 2008-2009, with some new faces on the Board of Directors, but enough old
veterans that we will have continuity, we look to another productive year of
service for Rotary (and of course for Rotary Global History.)
WE are YOU. WE build our leadership team from what
YOU recommend in terms of your regional, blossoming leadership (bottom up
concept of leadership.) Our Regional District History Representatives are
what YOU (the members of Rotary Global History) help to create.
Rotary Shares and Rotary Dreams but the sharing and the dreaming starts with
YOUR SERVICE and YOUR DREAMS. We have reached a point in our growth as a
Fellowship where without YOU there is no Rotary Global History.
Working together, communicating together is “fellowship.”
We come back to the truth that started this essay: “History
is our future. To know is to grow.”
For any organization to grow, it must see the reality of
those around the world for which it serves. That reality is now centered on
virtual communications as well as face to face fellowship.
In March 2008,
President Kagle wrote to the RGHF members: “A Rotary friend from the local
club that I left to join an eClub and Rotary Global History asked
me: “How can you live in service when you exist on the Internet for most of
your contacts?” I told him, “We live in a virtual world everyday. Yesterday,
I went to the bank, gave Mary, my favorite teller, a piece of paper and she
gave me green play money which could buy things that I needed. The day
before I gave a machine at the local service station a piece of plastic and
another machine gave my car gas. Last month, my doctor looked at my insides
through a machine that could see what he could not. He trusted what he saw,
he told me.
Rotary Global History is a virtual world
with some real moments of fellowship and service. Our mission is recording
the data of Rotary from our past, the moments of victory in our present and
the visions of success for our future. Without virtual dreams, we are just
animals without tomorrow. Rotary Global History tells Rotarians
about those dreams!”
The problem with virtual communications, and its wonder, is
that one can hide as well as be seen in the most fundamental way.
In November 2007,
President Kagle wrote: “Wow, it takes a lot to impress me as I get older
(and some days one feels the years sailing by). What did impress me with the
Board of Directors’ eMeeting (a 72-hour session that lasts from Friday 12:01
am to Sunday 11:59 pm) for November was this: all our Board of Directors
attended (a first this year) and the quality of the ideas, suggestions,
discussion and comments. No one gets paid for being a Board member but WE
give OUR time and expertise free for a mission that WE believe in and
support. We come together from different cultures, different mindsets
(schooled through different dogmas), different temperaments and different
talents/personalities. We come together and share our differences to create
ideas that each of us can support.”
Any history is looking back so that our feet are placed
firmly on the present ground so that our vision can expand toward the
future. Rotary Global History is a vehicle to do just that: take
a walk to the open sky of new ideas, while this fellowship of Rotarians
finds and records what Rotary was and is. History is important because
(again that important idea) “to know is to grow.”
Joe Kagle,
2007-09 RGHF President/Chairman 24 July 2008
www.rghf.org.
Member: Rotary eClub of
the Southwest, USA, District 5510
Professor of Art and Art History, Lone Star
College-Kingwood, Texas USA
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