Dear fellow Rotarians,

This year celebrates the centenary of The Rotary Foundation. As the chair of The District Rotary Foundation I am writing to each member to request that our District celebrates by making this year the best year ever in relation to contributions from members and clubs. When TRF commenced one hundred years ago; with the aim to do good in the world; very little happened, contributions were small and as a result little was done. When our founder Paul Harris died, as a mark of respect clubs made contributions to TRF in his honour and from there the goal of TRF was realised and we have been doing good in the world ever since. I am aware that all Rotarians give to one or more charities each year, as simply to be a member of Rotary means you care for your community and your “fellow man”. What I am asking this year is to make TRF your first choice of charity in honour of the centenary, as the clubs did when Paul Harris died, so we can boost the funds to wipe out Polio and set ourselves up for the next big project which I hope is the fight against Malaria. I am not asking you to neglect your special charities. Like each and every one of you I have a charity that I support; I am asking that you and your family and hopefully your extended family will make an effort to contribute to TRF this year to celebrate 100 years of doing good in the world. The mission of the Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education and the alleviation of poverty. I thank you in advance for your support.

Yours in Rotary Service … David Cooke PDG

This month of November is Rotary International Foundation month, and the following is to advise Members of some of the work which Foundation does and why we donate to them.  The mission of Rotary  Foundation is to enable we Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill and peace through the various programs whereby  we attempt to improve the health of the world, various programs which  Rotary Foundation supports various worldwide educational programs, and the attempted alleviation of poverty. Rotary Foundation through the subscriptions and donations we make. both as a Club and individuals, contribute to all of the programs above, and then our donations are also passed back to District on a 50% payback basis three years after our initial payment arrives at Foundation. From that Clubs can apply for District  Grants from the Foundation monies to assist re finance for our own local projects. Obviously District has limited funds to allocate for these Grants, but we wouldn’t even get to that stage of application for a Grant UNLESS we as a Club etc donate on a regular basis. An example of this method of gaining a District Grant occurred for our Club this Rotary Year when we successfully gained small grant monies for three Club projects such as River of Stories, a Memorial Stone and Seat to be fixed at browns Lagoon, and the recent Art Festival. For our international project  in Tanzania we also received a small grant to proceed with the improvements we wish to progress at Kitenden School in Tanzania. If we hadn’t donated in earlier years such Grants would not have been available to us, the Club. We all know how successful RF is in their program of End Polio Now, and beside the additional sponsorship of Bill Gates, the program was initially started  by RF, and was operating quite a few years before they gained the most welcome  additional financial support of Mr. Gates. None of this would be possible unless we as a Club and you as Individuals made donations to the Foundation. We as a Club have an annual RF collection whereby we seek to ask Members to donate $100 to the cause, and that the donation can be spread over three or four months should the Member so wish. The Club Board hope that you will make a donation in future months to the Foundation program.  Pete Lee … Club Director, Rotary Foundation

The Rotary Foundation Month – November is the time to celebrate the wonderful work of The Rotary Foundation. Using the links in the pages under The Rotary Foundation heading on the left side bar, why not explore the activities of the Foundation and consider how you and your club can help.