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Our speaker DG Eric Marcus told a number of personal stories to illustrate how helping others while a Rotarian can lead to feeling good and wanting to do more service above self to benefit the whole community, here and elsewhere.

He said he went to Belize with a group of Rotarians who were ophthalmologists and opticians, while he has always been a Dominos  pizza seller. Not being an eye doctor, he wasn’t sure what he would be able to do to help out in getting eye glasses to those who needed them, he said. It turned out he was asked to sort through 2,000 pairs of used eye glasses they had brought along to find a pair that would match or closely match a patient’s prescription, which the doctors determined. While it may have been a chore, he witnessed a little girl about 10 years old get and put on a pair of glasses he had located for her. When she exclaimed to her mother that she could see clearly for the first time in her life, he realized the true mission of Rotary in helping others, he said.

“Rotary service is a journey, not a destination,” he said. “We become Rotarians for life.”

He has met and become friends with people around the world, from Scotland to Singapore and Australia, at Rotary International Conventions, he said.

The cowboy-like hat he wore when he came in to the meeting was a hat he bought for $140 while pub crawling with fellow Rotarians in Bisbane
that had become his friends and said he looked good in the hat when he tried it on, which was after a few beers, he said.

Rotary members  should want to become leaders and district governors for Rotary, he said. With 57 members in them Centerville club, we need 57 leaders, he said. The multiplication of such leadership throughout the Rotary world would mean a much better world for everyone, he said.  “Rotary Club succeeds because of leaders,” he said.

Marcus said he ran into the Rotary Foundation’s new president, Mr. Huang, while in San Diego. He said Huang thinks of Confucius as the first Rotarian. He quoted Confucius as saying " It is better to light a single candle than to sit and curse the darkness."

 

DG Marcus said next year’s Rotary Leadership Institute will be held at the Hope Hotel at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
The district project, he said, will involve the 1,000 cherry trees planting project that Centerville Rotary has  participated in on our local level. The program will include a tour of the National Air Force Museum by its director Dick Apple, a visit to the Wright Flying Field, and a visit to the Wright Brothers Memorial Center. Those wearing a suit and tie to the visits will be fined, he said, as casual dress will be the fashion of the day.