Changes and Continuity
23 June 2002

This is the time of the year when our Rotary organization is busy preparing for leadership changes at every level, from the RI President at Evanston to the governor in every district and the president at the local club. For nearly a century, Rotarians have accepted this annual changing of guards as given. At the international level, RI has developed mechanisms to ensure continuity thereby maintaining the necessary consistency and credibility. For example, all RI Directors serve a two-year term so that at any one time at least half of the board members are veterans. Then there are the Rotary Foundation Trustees and their committees, the Council of Past Presidents, and very importantly, the Office of the General Secretary. Between them, the Rotary leadership have developed a system which enable them to serve the world better.

It would seem logical that similar mechanisms ought to be developed at the district level. Indeed, following Carlo Ravizza's call for continuity, the district leadership created a continuity committee whereby three successive governors would sit together regularly to discuss major issues affecting the District. More significantly, in 2000-01, the District hired a management consultant to advise how the Rotary Information Centre can better serve the interests of the leadership and membership. The consultant made a series of recommendations aimed at making RIC more relevant to present day needs, including staff training and development. Unfortunately, Governor Johnson Chu appears to be content with the Report gathering dust and has not seen it fit to implement many of the recommendations.

We now spend more than half a million dollars each year to keep the RIC running, mainly on staff, or about 40% of the annual budget, but many senior and experienced Rotarians in the District have questioned whether the contribution is value for money, or more fundamentally, what we are getting out of it.

Let us pause to see how our partners in service have been doing. I refer, in particular, to the Lions Clubs International (LCI) District 303 and the Hong Kong Junior Chamber (HKJC). Now, both organizations manage a functional and effective secretariat funded by membership dues. Both organizations provide their elected representatives a budget and authority to incur reasonable expenses on administration and community service. And naturally, both organizations charge their members district dues at rates rather higher than what we each contribute to our district.

One very interesting angle about these two organizations is that they both have high regard for continuity in leadership notwithstanding the high degree of financial autonomy and authority vested in the reigning leadership. Past governors of LCI District 303 and past national presidents of HKJC have continued to be active not only in their organizations, but also in the community. They help shape long range and strategic planning. In the case of LCI District 303, for example, the past governors have helped to forge vital links and develop understanding between Hong Kong and the Mainland, resulting in two service clubs being established in the Mainland. In the case of HKJC, the senior members have developed close links with the All China Youth Federation and quite a few senators and past national presidents hold posts at provincial and national level.

Back to our District, we too have past governors and past presidents who can open doors in the Mainland at many levels. Many of them have been active in the community, but they are generally not identified with Rotary when they perform such good work and are not duly recognized by Evanston even when they hold themselves out as Rotarians while building schools and healing the sick in the Mainland.

We need to think afresh and decide how we should position ourselves in the community, in the District, in the region and in the world, particularly in relation to service in the Mainland, not because we need public recognition as such, which would help our membership growth, but because it would facilitate our work in the Mainland and make us so much more efficient and effective in delivering the service to the people in the Mainland who badly need our service. We need to start somewhere and fast. As a first step, we must learn to preserve our strengths and consolidate our resources. Gloria Chan will assume the Office of District Governor in a few days. We hope she would give priority to a Continuity Committee and revisit the recommendations in the consultancy report on RIC. We look forward to her leadership and we believe she can expect unqualified support from all her predecessors.