Rotarians from around Hawke's Bay share their stories

Rotary Wheels - 08-01-2024 - Jane Hamilton - President - Rotary Waipukarau

Rotary International is an international service organisation whose stated purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian services, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. It is a secular organization open to all persons regardless of race, colour, creed, religion, gender, or political preference. 

There are 34,282 clubs and over 1.2 million members worldwide. The members of Rotary Clubs are known as Rotarians. Members usually meet weekly for breakfast, lunch or dinner, which is a social event as well as an opportunity to organize work on their service goals. 

Rotary's primary motto is "Service above Self"; with an earlier motto being "One profits most who serves best". 

Philosophy: The object of Rotary is to encourag foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster: • The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
• High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
• The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;
• The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
This objective is set against the "Rotary 4-way Test", used to see if a planned action is compatible with the Rotarian spirit. The test was developed by Rotarian and entrepreneur Herbert J. Taylor during the Great Depression as a set of guidelines for restoring faltering businesses and was adopted as the standard of ethics by Rotary in 1942. It is still seen as a standard for ethics in business management. 
The 4-Way Test considers the following questions in respect to thinking, saying or doing: 
• Is it the truth? 
• Is it fair to all concerned? 
• Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
• Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
Ahuriri Sunrise is a Rotary breakfast club meeting on Wednesday mornings from 6:45am-8:00am at East Pier, in Ahuriri, Napier. The 2019/2020 President is Lynne Trafford who also presents Rotary Wheels: lynne@traffordconsulting.co.nz.  These programmes are downloadable after broadcast