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| About Rotary International |
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| Rotary is a worldwide organization of business and
professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high
ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in
the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 31,000
Rotary clubs located in 167 countries.
Rotary club membership
represents a cross-section of the community's business and professional
men and women. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical,
nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.
The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community, in the
workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community service
projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as
children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and
violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities
and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other
professionals, and vocational and career development. The Rotary motto is Service
Above Self.
Although Rotary clubs develop autonomous service programs, all
Rotarians worldwide are united in a campaign for the global eradication of
polio. In the 1980s, Rotarians raised US$240 million to immunize the
children of the world; by 2005, Rotary's centenary year and the target
date for the certification of a polio-free world, the PolioPlus
program will have contributed US$500 million to this cause. In addition,
Rotary has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at
national immunization days in polio-endemic countries around the world.
The Rotary
Foundation of Rotary International is a not-for-profit corporation
that promotes world understanding through international humanitarian
service programs and educational and cultural exchanges. It is supported
solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and others who share its
vision of a better world. Since 1947, the Foundation has awarded more than
US$1.1 billion in humanitarian and educational grants, which are initiated
and administered by local Rotary clubs and districts.
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Object of Rotary
The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a
basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:
FIRST. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
SECOND. 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;
THIRD. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal,
business, and community life;
FOURTH. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace
through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the
ideal of service.
The Four-Way Test
From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were concerned with
promoting high ethical standards in their professional lives. One of the world's
most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics is The Four-Way
Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor (who later served
as RI president) when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing
bankruptcy.
This 24-word test for employees to follow in their business and professional
lives became the guide for sales, production, advertising, and all relations
with dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this
simple philosophy. Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The Four-Way Test has been
translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of
ways. It asks the following four questions:
"Of the things we think, say or do:
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Is it the TRUTH?
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Is it FAIR to all concerned?
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Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
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Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?"
*Information from Rotary
International web-site: www.rotary.org*
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