The Degree 33 Surfboard Team consists of a half dozen members of Surfers Unite Rotarian Fellowship who raised more than $400,000 last year in the 100 Wave Challenge. This year due to COVID-19, participants can take part around the globe during an extended two-month period. By Brett Morey, chair of Surfers Unite Rotarian Fellowship and…
Tory Paxson and her family By Tory Paxson, vice president, Boothbay Harbor Rotary Club, District 7780, Maine, USA What’s life like for people between the ages of 18 and 35 in the Boothbay Region of Maine? Through Rotary, young people take on leadership positions that expand their skills while they serve. Rotary does more than…
By David Peterson, Club and District Support Manager, and Victoria Schiffman, Member and Club Management Product Owner, Rotary International Imagine this: You meet a fellow Rotarian at an event. You are interested in collaborating on a project and promise to follow up. A few days later, you realized you’ve misplaced their contact information. Now what?…
Cyndi Doragh By Cyndi Doragh, Zone 34 assistant Rotary coordinator and member of the Rotary Club of Fort Myers South, Florida, USA Nearly three decades ago, I wanted to join Rotary. The first club I tried to join told me they weren’t accepting any more bankers. (In those days, it was common for Rotary clubs…
Local civic and government officials and representatives from ten Rotary clubs at the 2019 World Polio Day event. Photo by David Andrews By David F. Andrews, three-time past president, Rotary Club of Oshawa-Parkwood, Ontario, Canada, and chair of District 7070’s Public Image Committee After many years of celebrating World Polio Day with proclamations, updates from…
A hybrid meeting setup with a webcam on a dampened tripod, a laptop, and a projector. By Patrick Eakes, Zone 33 Rotary Coordinator Patrick Eakes In our area, the global pandemic arrived like an unwelcome dinner guest. Within a matter of days after the first local case of COVID-19, my Rotary club’s meeting location closed,…
Rudy Balmater By Rudy C. Balmater, membership committee chair, Rotary Club of Jakarta Gambir, Indonesia In early 2019, I received an online membership inquiry from Dicky Armando, who lived in Pontianak in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan. Pontianak is about 735 kilometres away from Jakarta and reachable by airplane in less than two hours.…
A delegation of 30 Papua New Guinea participants funded by the Evangelical Lutheran Church take part in the Global Cyber Peace Conference. Elaine Pratley By Elaine Pratley, Rotary Peace Fellow This has not been an easy year. I attended my first virtual funeral because of local lockdowns due to COVID-19. Friends have lost jobs and…
David Jones and his wife, Judy, in San Francisco in 2006. By David Jones, president-elect of the Rotary Club of Upper Arlington/Grandview (TriVillage), Columbus, Ohio, USA In 2008, my world changed when my wife of 29 years was killed by an impaired driver. She was returning from a college visit with our 17-year-old daughter. My…
In March, members of Rotary, Rotaract, and Interact from both Pakistan and India gathered together at Kartarpar Sabib a shrine holy to Sikhs. By Sajid Pervaiz, past governor of District 3272, member of the Rotary Club of Ruryila, Pakistan In March, members of Rotary, Rotaract, and Interact from both Pakistan and India gathered together at…