Rotary in the Charlotte Dilworth and South End Area
2012-13 Theme Address from Rotary International on Vimeo.
News for the Week of Friday, January 27, 2012
22 Members Attend Social at Kate's Home
Among the 22 who attended are these Dilworthians. Left to right: Ann Pockat, Richard Pockat, Ed King, Ernie Rider, and Jay Shinn Social Chair Kate Richards said, "My idea of collecting $7.50 per person to cover the drinks was too high, and one person overpaid me. So we have $80 to contribute to Dilworth Charities. The social turned out to be a fundraiser of sorts! Everyone brought food so there was enough to count as dinner. I think everyone had a good time playing pool and chatting. I know I did!"
Crisis Assistance Ministry Work Dates Set for Year
The Crisis Assistance Ministry clothes processing team has set all the work dates for 2012. All Tuesday nights, they are February 21, April 17, June 19, August 21, October 16 and December 18.
The team processes donated clothing. At various times processing involves sorting, hanging clothes, and putting them on the display racks. The team will work every other month.
The dates have been entered in the calendar that appears in The Dilworthian every week.
Five Members Work on Habitat House
This past Saturday, five members braved the rainy weather to work on the Habitat for Humanity House. The five are Ed King, team leader, David Kirkpatrick, John Luebke, Dave Miller, and Paul Zowaski.
The team had been scheduled to work on the roof, but due to the rain worked inside on various tasks.
Ed, the Team Leader thanked everyone for coming out despite the bad weather and rain. He wanted to remind everyone that in March we will be participating in building a "Rotary House" and wants to encourage others in the club to come out and help. Remember: "Service Above Self."
In March, work will start on the annual Rotary Habitat House. Work dates will be published in The Dilworthian.
Left to right are: Paul Zowaski, John Luebke, Ed King, Dave Miller, David Kirkpatrick
DilWorth Noting
Mid-Year Assembly Scheduled Saturday
The Mid-Year Assembly will be held Saturday, Jan. 28, from 8:45 a.m. until 12:15 p.m. at Mitchell Community College (Continuing Education Campus), 701 West Front Street, Statesville, NC 28677. Go early for coffee and fellowship.
The Assembly will go to break-out sessions at 11:30 a.m.. Rotary Club Presidents will meet with District Governor Allen Langley from 11:30 a.m. until Noon. Presidents-elect will meet with the District Governor-Elect Chris Jones. There also will be a separate session with the other Rotarians. PDG Lois Crumpler and Mark Markanda will lead that session in the form of questions and answers.
Novelist Joe Epley Will Talk About Nature
Of American Revolution in the Carolinas
Joe S. Epley, APR, in this week's program will talk about the nature of the American Revolutionary War in the South. While researching for his historical novel, "Passel of Hate," Joe found that war in the Carolinas was different from war in the North. His research showed that in the South Loyalists were fighting Patriots more often than British soldiers fighting American soldiers in formal engagements. In the South, particularly in the Carolinas, both sides fought a guerilla war. In this vicious fighting, both sides often committed atrocities.
His novel is set in the period leading up to and including the Battle of Kings Mountain.
Joe, retired Chairman of Epley Associates, will have copies of his book available for purchase and will sign copies.
Rotary Clubs Worldwide Meet $200 Million
Fundraising Challenge for Polio Eradication
Despite a stagnant global economy, Rotary clubs around the world have succeeded in raising more than US$200 million in new funding for polio eradication.
The fundraising milestone, announced today at Rotary's annual International Assembly in San Diego, was reached in response to a $355 million challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All funds have been earmarked to support polio immunization activities in countries where this vaccine-preventable disease continues to paralyze children.
"We'll celebrate this milestone, but it doesn't mean that we'll stop raising money or spreading the word about polio eradication," Rotary Foundation Trustee John F. Germ told the annual conference of Rotary leaders. "We can't stop until our entire world is certified as polio free."
"In recognition of Rotary's great work, and to inspire Rotarians in the future, the [Gates] foundation is committing an additional $50 million to extend our partnership," said Jeff Raikes, chief executive officer of the Gates Foundation. "Rotary started the global fight against polio, and continues to set the tone for private fundraising, grassroots engagement and maintaining polio at the top of the agenda with key policy makers."
Since 1988, the incidence of polio has plummeted by more than 99 percent, from about 350,000 infections annually to fewer than 650 cases reported so far for 2011. The wild poliovirus now remains endemic - meaning its transmission has never been stopped - in only four countries: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. However, India on January 13 marked a full calendar year without a case, paving the way for its removal from the endemic list.
But other countries also remain at risk for polio cases imported from the endemic countries. In Africa in 2011, Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo had significant outbreaks. Also in 2011, a small cluster of polio cases in China, which had been polio-free for a decade, was attributable to a virus from Pakistan.
Rotary members not only reached into their own pockets to support the Gates challenge, but engaged their communities in a variety of creative fundraising projects, such as a fashion show in California that raised $52,000; benefit film screenings in New Zealand and Australia that netted $54,000; and a pledge-supported hike through Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, that brought in $38,000. Many events were planned around October 24, widely observed as World Polio Day.
To date, Rotary club members worldwide have contributed more than $1 billion toward the eradication of polio, a cause Rotary took on in 1985. In 1988, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention joined Rotary as spearheading partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. More recently, the Gates Foundation has become a major supporter. In 2007, the Gates Foundation gave Rotary a $100 million challenge grant for polio eradication, increasing it to $355 million in 2009. Rotary agreed to raise $200 million in matching funds by June 30, 2012.
Reaching children with the oral polio vaccine in the disease's remaining strongholds is labor and resource -intensive due to a host of challenges, including poor infrastructure, geographical isolation, armed conflict and cultural misunderstanding about the eradication campaign.
President-Elect Chooses as Theme
For 2012-13 "Peace Through Service"
Rotary International President-elect Sakuji Tanaka will ask Rotarians to build Peace Through Service in 2012-13.
President-elect Tanaka unveiled the Rotary International theme during the opening plenary session of the 2012 International Assembly, a training event for incoming Rotary district governors.
"Peace, in all of the ways that we can understand it, is a real goal and a realistic goal for Rotary," he said. "Peace is not something that can only be achieved through agreements, by governments, or through heroic struggles. It is something that we can find and that we can achieve, every day and in many simple ways."
Peace has different meanings for different people, Tanaka said.
"No definition is right, and no definition is wrong," he said. "However we use the word, this is what peace means for us.
"No matter how we use, or understand the word, Rotary can help us to achieve it," he added.
The President-Elect, a businessman from the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, shared how becoming a Rotarian broadened his understanding of the world. After joining the Rotary Club of Yashio, in 1975, he said, he began to realize that his life's purpose was not to make more money, but to be useful to other people.
"I realized that by helping others, even in the simplest of ways, I could help to build peace," he said.
He noted that the Japanese tradition of putting the needs of society above the needs of the individual helped his country rebuild after the tsunami and earthquake in March.
"This is a lesson that I think the whole world can learn from, in a positive way. When we see the needs of others as more important than our own needs -- when we focus our energies on a shared goal that is for the good of all -- this changes everything," he said. "It changes our priorities in a completely fundamental way. And it changes how we understand the idea of peace."
Mr. Tanaka will ask Rotarians to focus their energy on supporting the three priorities of the RI Strategic Plan , he said. He added that he will ask the incoming leaders to promote three Rotary peace forums, to be held in Hiroshima, Japan; Berlin; and Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
"In Rotary, our business is not profit. Our business is peace," he said. "Our reward is not financial, but the happiness and satisfaction of seeing a better, more peaceful world, one that we have achieved through our own efforts."
Our Club
Founded as Dilworth Rotary Club in 1948, Charlotte Dilworth South End Rotary Club is part of a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in the world.
Rotary is a volunteer organization with over 32,000 clubs in 168 countries. The organization initiates humanitarian programs that address today's challenging issues, such as hunger, poverty, and illiteracy.
Rotary club members represent a cross-section of business and professional leaders worldwide. These 1.2 million men and women donate their expertise, time, and funds to support local and international projects that help people in need and promote understanding among cultures.
Rotary's flagship program is its effort to protect children against polio, with the goal of ending the disease throughout the world.
Charlotte Dilworth South End Rotary Club serves its community and the world through projects for the Boy Scouts of America, Crisis Assistance Ministry, dental, homebuilding and medical missions in Central and South America, Habitat for Humanity, Salvation Army, the Charlotte USO and many others.
For further information, contact Lamar Gunter at 704-525-0569 or e-mail him at
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Charlotte Dilworth South End Rotary Club
District 7680
Charter 7076
Post Office Box 471211
Charlotte, NC 28247-1211 USA
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The Charlotte Dilworth South End Rotary Club, a service club of men and women chartered by Rotary International, meets for lunch regularly on Fridays at 12:15 p.m. at Byron's Catering in South End, 101 W. Worthington.
Rotary International has clubs in over 160 nations...A Global Network of Community Volunteers
