A message from Rotary International President Kalyan Banerjee:

My friends, the day that polio will be eradicated is close at hand.  We have to be ready for it with a powerful Rotary - a Rotary of enthusiasm and confidence, of bold vision and clear ambitions.  It is time for us to prepare by taking an honest look at our clubs.  Are our projects meaningful, sustainable, and relevant?  Are our meetings productive and enjoyable?  Are our clubs welcoming to new members, and are our schedules and events friendly to young families?  And once people join us, do we welcome them properly, involve them enough?  Do we make them a part of the family of Rotary quickly enough?

The figures tell us that while enough new individuals join Rotary every year and everywhere, too many exit Rotary on an ongoing basis.  What unfulfilled hope do they leave with?  What expectations are we not meeting?  Can we do more and better?

Now is the time to focus our energies on our clubs, and on the way people see them.  It is time to show our communitites that the Rotary of today is not the Rotary of t heir preconceptions.  Rotary is a way to connect, to do more, to be more - it is a way to take our idealism and our vision and turn them into reality.