Rotary's Circle of Life

     Most people join local Rotary clubs because they want to establish additional friendships with like-minded people and to make an impact, first in their local community then internationally. If early in their professional careers, they may also want to develop or improve their leadership skills. When relocating, they want to establish friendships while rebuilding their personal back-up systems, or as Rotary’s founders put it, development of acquaintances as an opportunity for service. It may be for business reasons, social reasons, or service reasons, but it’s still networking and developing friendships.

     New members, particularly those in growing businesses, want to be known as having high ethical standards in their business and profession. Rotarians dignify and treat their own occupation as an opportunity to serve society. While satisfying these initial needs, members learn about the worthiness of all useful occupations, and that everyone benefits when applying the ideal of service to their personal and business lives. If clubs have been diligent in maintaining their WHY factor, members will enjoy witnessing high ethical standards in use and see that applying the ideal of service to their community life is beneficial to all concerned, including themselves, learning that service is self.

     Members participating in one or more of the many international opportunities the Rotary organization offers enrich their lives by personally advancing international understanding and building goodwill with others united in service.  By this time, twenty-plus-year Rotarians have developed lifelong friendships and experienced years of varying types of service. 
     In clubs that effectively advance the Object of Rotary, veteran members will continue to develop acquaintances as an opportunity for service by sharing life experiences with new Rotarians, completing Rotary’s Circle of Life.