New Year Business Meeting

Well here I am now half way through my time as District Governor! People always say they don’t know where time goes, but it does and the older we get the quicker it seems to go! Just before I took over as District Governor I spoke to you about my ideas, my reason for taking on the role of DG. 4 years ago, before covid and when I was an Assistant Governor I was asked to speak at Warwick Rotary club where a friend of mine was President. At the end, one of the questions was had I any ambition to become District Governor to which I quickly replied No way!! Yet here I am. I visited that same club in October a few months ago but this time as District Governor. The inevitable question was asked, what had changed my mind! The answer was easy to give, it was my passion for Rotary and what Rotary does that made me change my mind. However, I did not take on the role just to tick over but hopefully to make a difference, to help move our District forward into 2023. 

I thoroughly enjoy visiting the clubs in our District and to date I have visited 30 clubs which still leaves a lot to do! However, one thing I have learnt in my time in parishes and also in Rotary is that you can’t do everything yourself! We can only do our best and that is what I try to do. However, one thing I do find in many of our clubs, is that since Covid we seem to have lost our direction, lost our passion. We need to rekindle that because Passion is catching! 

Our theme for the year is Imagine Rotary! Imagination can take us in many different directions. As I said at Conference, Walt Disney said If you can dream it, you can do it! Mary Poppins said Open different doors, you may find a you there you never knew was yours. Anything can happen. I also spoke of one of the rides in Epcot called Figment of Imagination. In this ride you are in a car that takes you through the various senses and just before the end you suddenly veer off in a new direction which is of course your imagination and true to all Disney rides there is a song playing throughout! The chorus of the song says 

“We all have sparks, imaginations,

That’s how or minds create creations,

For they can make our wildest dreams come true, 

Those magic sparks in me and you. 

In Rotary we need to rekindle those sparks. We need to reimagine Rotary. At the end of a Year, it is right to look back at what’s happened in the past year but if you keep looking backwards you get a very stiff neck, we need to look forwards as well, forwards to new opportunities, new challenges. I have lost count of how many times I have heard people in clubs say, but we have always done it that way? Have you ever asked the question why, why have you always done it that way, do you need to continue to do it that way? Of course, this may include the dreaded word change. None of us like change but instead of the word change use the word adapt! We need to adapt to new situations. 

When new members join our clubs which hopefully, they do, they bring with them new ideas, new ways of thinking and that should be encouraged and as they become more involved in our clubs so will their ideas and that freshness that we so desperately need will permeate into our clubs thinking. However, we learn lessons from the past and we also appreciate what has gone before. Yes, we need new members, but we also need to appreciate the members we have. 

Rotary changes, it adapts just as we as individuals adapt as the years go by. We celebrate 100 years of Bexhill Rotary Club this year and what an achievement that is. It has been my privilege to join other Rotary Clubs throughout our District who are also celebrating their 100 years. Just before Christmas Eileen and I were invited to Dover Clubs Centenary Charter night which was also their Christmas Dinner. They are a club that is growing, and they have some excellent ideas that is attracting new and indeed younger members. But above all they are driven by the desire to serve their community, to bring about change in people’s lives. But it does not happen overnight. 

We just know we need to put service above self. HOWEVER, something recently made me think about that phrase as I have said it so many times over many years. Service above self. In a way its important but perhaps we have partly got it wrong all these years. It’s a bit like the phrase love your neighbour as yourself! The important part is as yourself. If you do not love and appreciate who you are how can you love your neighbour! One of the most moving and meaningful things I saw on TV over Christmas was the cartoon The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse. There was so much meaning in it and so much advice as to how to live your life. The boy is lonely when the mole first surfaces, they spend time together gazing into the wild. I think the wild is a bit like life, frightening sometimes but beautiful. In their wanderings they meet the fox. It’s never going to be easy meeting a fox if you are a mole. The boy if full of questions, the mole is greedy for cake. The fox is mainly silent and wary because he’s been hurt by life. The horse is the biggest thing they have ever encountered and also the gentlest. They are all different like us, and each has

their own weaknesses. I can see myself in all four of them. The story is encouraging us to live courageously, with more kindness for yourself and for others and also to ask for help when its needed. There is a lot of talk these days about wellbeing, some of it may be a passing phase but there is an important message as we start a New Year that as well as looking after others we need also to look after ourselves. The fox says to the boy, “Sometimes your mind plays tricks on you, it can tell you it’s no good, that its hopeless. But I have discovered this, You are loved, you are important, and you bring to this world something that no one else can, so hold on.” We bring who we are to Rotary, many different individuals with something to offer but we make a difference. 

We may simply be only Bexhill Rotary Club, but we are part of a much larger institution, Rotary International and that really does make a difference as we continue to strive to make our world a better place. That is what our club has been doing over the past 100 years year, not looking back but forwards and strengthening our fellowship with each other. 

Rotary would not exist without us its members. It all starts with us! Over the past 100 years our Club has certainly changed, indeed it is probably unrecognizable to those who started it. But its purpose remains the same to put service above self but not forgetting self!

If Bexhill Rotary Club had not existed our community would be extremely poorer in many ways, as in 100 years we have certainly made a difference and for that we need to be proud, not just of what we have done and will do but proud of the efforts of all those who have gone before us. May we continue to enjoy our Rotary and together face the challenges this New Year brings.