Page 1 - Rotary Matters - final edition July

Last edition - July 2023 DG Newsletter

Dear fellow Rotarians, partners and friends of Rotary,

The season of Change

It was Benjamin Disraeli who wrote “Change is inevitable. Change is constant”.
Our District like all other Rotary Districts around the globe have been celebrating club
Changeovers. Some Districts refer to their Changeovers as Installations - being the celebration of a new
President or District Governor.

While, I do appreciate and acknowledge our new District
Governor as I do each Club President, however I personally
look at this period of Changeovers as a time of renewal,
while celebrating the achievements of the past year and
laying out a plan for the year ahead.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the
past or present are certain to miss the future” were words
spoken by John F Kennedy. In many respects, these words
explain my thoughts around our “changeovers” – we not only have a look at what happened in the past, or
what’s currently happening, we also celebrate the installation of a new Leadership team and pave the way
for the future.

Rotary for more than 118 years have been
promoting this annual “changeover”
celebration – hence why I consider it a time
of renewal and it appears to have been a
successful strategy. I do appreciate that
some clubs are not necessarily changing
Presidents, but they are still having that
celebration of the change of Rotary year and
the change of focus.
We live in a period of change, and while I don’t necessarily applaud change for change’s sake, we need to
constantly review and reassess. Our Zone will do this over the next couple of years as we participate in
the Regionalisation pilot.

Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson is quoted with “He who rejects change is the architect of
decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery”. An interesting quote when
we consider the British institutions that seem not to move in time, a country steeped in tradition. Yet like
Zone 8, Rotary Great Britain and Ireland have been faced with dramatic membership losses and have also
embarked upon a pilot initiative, ensuring that they too have looked at how they operate.

During the past month and a half, the G-train have been sharing “changeover” celebrations with clubs
and their members. Obviously, we have shared among the G-train the privilege of attending these events,
many were held at the same or similar times, which also required us to call upon Past District Governors to
assist, representing Rotary International.

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