On 6 March 2017, David Pope our new District Governor elect came to speak to us about his new role and particularly the training that he attended in the USA and the friends he made there.  For David, his experience reiterated the ‘internationality’ of Rotary as an organisation, and the effect that we can have globally as part of Rotary.

Rotary regularly adopts themes that emphasise our global reach, for example ‘international fellowship’, ‘world understanding’, ‘reach out’ and this year’s theme: ‘Rotary Serving Humanity’.

David reminded us of the quote by Edgar Mitchell, an astronaut on Apollo 14, speaking about his experience of looking back at the earth from space: “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it.”  This is something that we can also embrace as members of Rotary.  Whilst each one of us is limited in terms of what we can achieve, as Rotarians we are part of a movement which is bigger and more powerful than our individual selves, and we are empowered to achieve correspondingly more.

David left California after his training having made 1000 more friends from all over the world.  He found that face to face networking experience invaluable both as an individual, but also in terms of what he will be able to help the district to achieve on a global scale.  He encouraged us to explore what Rotary can offer, in terms of visiting local clubs but also wider exploration such as attending conferences across the UK and considering reaching out to Rotarians worldwide.

Many thanks for visiting us David, and very best wishes for your upcoming role as our District Governor!