Rotary Club of San Bernardino - Orange Peal - August 04, 2024 (Aug. 04, 2024)

President's Message

Hello Fellow Rotarians,

We had no regular club meeting last week given that it was the fifth Tuesday of July and the Elks Lodge was closed. I hope you have all been tolerating the heatwave we have been experiencing, and I look forward to seeing you all again this coming Tuesday following our one-week break! Remember, starting this month (August), our club will transition to meeting twice per month on the first and third Tuesdays. Our meetings this month will be August 6 and August 20. Be sure to mark your calendars.

A Call for New Members and Club Growth

August is Rotary’s Membership and New Club Development Month. Rotary would not be what it is today without its millions of dedicated members who give their time, treasure, and talent to help others throughout the world. To keep Rotary the robust organization it is and grow the organization to do even more good for the world, we need to always be focused on expansion both in terms of membership and club development. As 1992-1993 Rotary International President Cliff Dochterman once said, “Rotary International leaders keep emphasizing membership growth and extension because Rotary’s very survival depends on it.”

Each of us has a network of untapped friends and colleagues who would make wonderful Rotarians. I challenge everyone in our club to identify one or two people in your circle who you think would be a great addition to our club and invite them to one of our upcoming meetings to see what Rotary is all about!

Promoting Rotary – The “Elevator Pitch”

To prepare for extending an invitation to a friend or colleague to visit or join Rotary, you may want to first practice your Rotary “elevator pitch.” This is a brief statement (30 seconds or less) that explains what Rotary is, what our great organization does locally and throughout the world, and why you are a proud Rotarian. The pitch is designed to garner interest in and prompt a discussion about Rotary. If you have a few seconds left in your elevator pitch, you may want to conclude with a compliment about the person to whom you are making the pitch, showing why you think that person’s qualities would make them a great addition to our Rotary family.

In the August 2024 edition of the Rotary magazine, an article appeared on page 20 written by Beth Kotz in which she provided six tips on how to improve (or create!) your Rotary “elevator pitch.” These tips are:

Present your club as an opportunity
Keep it simple
Remember your enthusiasm
Cut the keywords
Build the hype
Find common ground

Take a look at your Rotary magazine, which further explains the details of each of these six tips. If you can’t find your magazine, you can also view the article online by clicking: https://magazine.rotary.org/rotary/august_2024/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1998538&app=false&cmsId=4207799#articleId1998538.

Most Rotarians love to talk, but if you aren’t great at giving elevator pitches, feel free to solicit interest in Rotary in another way. For example, you can share the Rotary International website (www.rotary.org) or the following Rotary video: https://vimeo.com/17537785. Both methods are great ways to highlight Rotary and allow others to see for themselves what Rotary is all about.

Rotary Blog

Did you know Rotary has an online community blog? The blog is called “Rotary Voices: Stories of Service from Around the World” and can be found at www.blog.rotary.org. Following is a recent blog post, which captures the spirit of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris as well as significant progress in gender equality!

Celebrating diversity in the 2024 Olympic Games

By Ayda Özeren, past governor of District 2440 (Türkiye)

The Olympic Games in Paris are especially delightful this year. They mark a historic milestone in gender equality. After 128 years, an equal number of male and female athletes are participating.

For the first time, the number of male and female athletes will be equal in 28 of the 32 sports that will award medals. The number of mixed-gender events where women and men compete together will increase from 18 to 20. Women will compete in 152 events, while men will compete in 157 events.

We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for a woman named Stamata Revithi. One hundred and twenty-eight years ago, Revithi became the catalyst for an incredible uprising in sports history when she insisted on running a marathon. She was around 30 and had moved to Athens, Greece, with her two children to find work. She loved long-distance running, so she applied to participate in the Olympic marathon. The International Olympic Committee rejected her application.

Paving the way

Revithi was stubborn. To at least show the Athenians that she could do it, she decided to run the 40-kilometer course on her own the day after the official marathon. She started her run at 8 a.m. and finished in about 5 hours and 30 minutes. During this time, she collected witnesses and documents to verify her run. But when she arrived at the Panathenaic Stadium, soldiers prevented her from entering. This historic moment became a symbol of the struggle for women’s participation in the Olympics. Revithi paved the way for women to compete in the next Games.

Since then, diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity have become the Olympics’ most important values. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics hosted by Nazi Germany, African American athlete Jesse Owens defied the racist rhetoric of the host country by winning four gold medals. His long-jump record remained unbroken for 25 years.

The 1980 and 1984 Olympics failed to provide equal opportunities and inclusiveness due to politics. The United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union retaliated by boycotting the 1984 games in the U.S. For athletes in both countries, years of preparation were wiped out.

My own country made its first appearance at the Paris Olympic Games 100 years ago, with 40 athletes. All our representatives that year were men. But Turkey did have a commitment to women’s sports. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk considered sports something that determined the level of development of a country. In 1926, to enable women’s participation, specialists were brought from Sweden to train Turkey’s first female physical education teachers at the Çapa Girls’ Teacher School.

The last Olympic Games Atatürk witnessed was the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Here, Turkey not only won its first medals but was represented by female athletes for the first time. Halet Çambel and Suat Fetgeri Aşeni, who competed in fencing, were the first Muslim female athletes to compete in the Games. In this year’s Olympics, a total of 102 Turkish athletes – including 54 women and 48 men – will participate in 18 sports.

Olympic motto

The Olympic motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius,” or “Faster, Higher, Stronger.” Can we be faster if one of us is missing? Can we reach higher if we separate a few of us? Is there a possibility of being stronger if we do not include everyone? I don’t think so.

I believe the Olympics brings us closer to global citizenship. I believe that sports, like art, will heal us by using the ointments of universality and diversity. I believe that competition under the roof of friendship blunts the power struggles in our souls.

That’s why, Paris, I’m eagerly waiting for you. I wish all our athletes success.

President, Bill Orr 2024-2025
Rotary Club of Downtown San Bernardino

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