ROTARY IS NOT JUST FOR MEN!

ROTARY IS NOT JUST FOR MEN!

Just to prove that Rotary is not an all-male organisation, it was all change at Knaresborough Rotary on 1^st July as James Moorhouse handed over the Presidency to Helen Westmancoat. Helen will be succeeded as President in 2025 by Deborah Wilson who will then be followed in 2026 by Stephanie Blevins.

The world-wide President of Rotary International 2024-25 is also a woman, Stephanie Urchick of the Rotary Club of McMurray, Pennsylvania, USA, the second woman to hold that position. Urchick is partner and chief operating officer of Doctors at Work LLC, a consulting and training company. She holds a doctorate in leadership studies from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. A Rotary member since 1991, Urchick has travelled to Vietnam to help build a primary school and to the Dominican Republic to install water filters. She studies several Slavic languages, has mentored new Rotarians in Ukraine, and coordinated a Rotary Foundation grant project in Poland.

 Stephanie has chosen ‘The Magic of Rotary’ as her theme for the year saying she saw the magic of Rotary on display when she was helping install water filters in the Dominican Republic. Two boys were watching as dirty water entered the filter, then ran out clean at the other end. “One of the boys grabbed my sleeve and said, ‘Show me the magic again,’” she said. “Obviously, the water filter wasn’t magic. We worked hard to transport those filters, install them, and work with community leaders in the area to maintain them. But those boys knew that easy access to clean water would change their lives. Knowing that I played a small part in that certainly changed my life.”