The Rotary Club of
New York
Fellow Rotarians,
Last week I told you about RI President
2000-2001 Frank Devlyn’s visit to the Rotary Club of New York on November 12. Ten days after
the meeting, Frank sent the following message addressed to all of us:
Dear Rotarians and Friends of the New
York City Rotary Club,
I was elated and honored to have had the
opportunity to briefly speak at your November 12th meeting before
the guest speaker. I was happy to see a new, invigorated Rotary Club. I say
this because you can get a certain feeling when you visit clubs that are
looking for ways to progress. Without a doubt, the work you carried out to help
the victims of the 9-11 events stands out for the world of Rotary as a great
example for other Rotary Clubs. You are well aware that in the past, many in
the leadership of Rotary used to complain that New York was not being proactive
and opening up to helping get other Rotary Clubs started in the city. I can
understand that you had your reasons but it is good to see that you are
accepting that it just might be proper to have some other Rotary Clubs in the
city.
I have to congratulate you for the excellent
work you have been doing towards promoting Rotaract and all you are doing with
the Gift of Life program. It
was also gratifying to learn through a group of Rotarians that you would
like to help start a Rotary Matcher Club Fellowship worldwide to help combat
terrorism. Please know that I will be talking to other leaders in Rotary to
find a way to help the New York City Rotary Club bring together a
representative club from each country to form this Country Matcher Club
Fellowship. Hope all of you will enjoy reading my Frank Talk book of which I was happy to donate 95 copies to help
your club in your fundraising endeavors for the Polio Campaign
I
also hope your club considers inviting the ambassadors and permanent
representatives to the UN to be Honorary members of the New York city Rotary
Club for which there is no cost to your club. Whenever these members come
to visit, they would pay as any visiting Rotarian. I mention this because we
have had tremendous results in other cities of the world where the same has
been done, like in D.C. where 25 ambassadors were brought in as Honorary
Rotarians, in the Chicago 1 Club 38 Consul Generals were brought in and I could
go on and on.
I look forward to visiting you as I will be
promoting the work of the Avoidable Blindness Task Force of Rotary
International at the New York Optical Fair in the month of March, 2003.
My regards to all. Keep up the good work. You
are Sowing the Seeds of Love
and Creating Awareness for Rotarians to Take Action with your good work.
Your amigo in Mexico City,
Frank Devlyn
Thank you Frank! Your visit was great! I
look forward to see you again in March. You can see pictures from Frank
Devlyn’s visit on our website at www.nyrotary.org/frank/frank_talk.html.
Our next
meeting will be Foundation Day with the Trustees of
our famous Foundation, who raised $1,460,912 for the victims of 9/11 with the
compassionate help from Rotarians all over the world. It was the most
successful Rotary club fundraiser in Rotary history. You can read in the latest
Bulletin about our Board of Trustees and the many programs that our Foundation
supports. You can find the Bulletin on our website at www.nyrotary.org/Bulletin/bulletin_11-26-2002.pdf.
Our Foundation Chairman Mort Eydenberg has also arranged for a
tennis outing followed by an Italian buffet dinner. You can read all about it
in the Bulletin.
There is also a message in the Bulletin from Fraternite Notre Dame
asking us for a gift to the under-privileged children for our Holliday Party on
December 17th.
Claudia King has written very good meeting minutes (in the Bulletin) from our last meeting. I enjoyed them especially since I missed our last meeting. I was in Sweden celebrating my parents 60th Wedding Anniversary.
In Sweden, I made up at the Rotary Club of Huddinge, where my father was president in the late fifties. I found out that my old Geography Teacher Jan Rosengren is a member of the Huddinge Rotary Club. Three years after I graduated, Jan became Principal of my old school and expanded it to become the biggest high school in Sweden. Jan is now retired and I enjoyed meeting him as a friend and fellow Rotarian. I was very impressed by his intelligence and insights. Thanks to the fellowship of Rotary, we were united again. The Rotary Club of Huddinge also invited me to speak about our New York Rotary Experience during 9/11. I have given this speech to Rotary Clubs in America, but this was the first time I made the speech in Swedish.
Happy birthday to Peter Brizard! He celebrates his birthday on November 26th. Peter became a member this year and his classification is Independent CPA Accountant – Trusts and Estates.
The Bulletin also welcomes our new member Dorothy Kolev. She was born in Japan and recently moved to New York. Welcome to our club Dorothy! You can read more about her in the Bulletin.
Many Rotarians around the world follow our activities in New York.
Christodoulos Achilleoudis from the Rotary Club of NICOSIA-LEFKOTHEA
in Cyprus visited our club some time ago and he recently sent me the following
message, which he has also sent to all Cyprus Rotarians:
Dear Fellow Rotarians all over Cyprus,
In the latest WEEKLY BULLETIN of the Rotary
Club of NEW YORK, which was kindly sent to me by e-mail, a most interesting
speech by Bhichai Rattakul, the President of Rotary International, is
included. It was given on 9 November 2002 on the occasion of the Rotary
International Day at the United Nations, New York City.
The speech was about Rotary's relationship
with the United Nations and how 49 ROTARIANS PARTICIPATED IN THE FORMATION OF
THE UNITED NATIONS. They participated in the UN Charter Conference in 1945 and
helped to write an important chapter of history with the UN Charter.
The very first President of the General
Assembly was a Rotarian - Carlos P. Romulo of the Philippines, who also served
as Vice President of Rotary International.
Today, Rotary International holds the UN's
highest non-governmental consultative status. Rotary International appoints
representatives to UNESCO, the UN Environment Program, the UN Center for Human
Settlement and other UN agencies.
With great pleasure I ATTACH this most
interesting speech, because I believe that every Rotarian must know about this
historic event. It is not long and I am sure that you will be interested
in devoting a few minutes to read it and learn more about this relationship,
for which we must be most grateful.
With Rotarian greetings,
Christodoulos Achilleoudis
Immediate Past President of the
Rotary Club of NICOSIA-LEFKOTHEA
Thank you Christodoulos for your message of
peace! Rotary International President Bhichai Rattakul’s United Nations Speech
is available on our website at www.nyrotary.org/ri_pres_bhichai/bhichai_rotary_un_speech.html.
Don’t forget to reserve your table for our next meeting. You can
do so via e-mail to our office at ny.rotary@verizon.net, or call Andreas or Ana at
212-633-1311. You can also fax in
the RSVP form, which you can download at www.nyrotary.org/Bulletin/rsvp_11-26-02.pdf. Our
fax number is 212-633-1954. Princeton Club’s culinary staff will serve a
Thanksgiving Meal at our next meeting. I would not be surprised if the meal is
turkey.
Rotary is a worldwide fellowship!
Internet
Communication Officer
The
Rotary Club of New York
Vice
Chairman
Rotary’s
Global History
This
newsletter has also been posted on our website at www.NYRotary.org.
In order to read the
PDF file of the Bulletin-on-the-Web, you need the latest version of the Acrobat
Reader (Version 5.0). If you don't have Acrobat Reader 5.0, you can download it
for free from the web at:
You can find the
following interesting websites at:
1.
New York
Rotary Club at www.NYRotary.org/.
2.
Rotary’s Global History
at www.rotaryhistory.org
3.
Rotary
Youth Leadership Awards at www.rotaryryla.com
4. Rotary
Radio every Tuesday 5-6 PM EST or 2-3 PM PST at http://12.162.161.64/cart/ProductList.asp?SearchFor=Rotary+Radio&x=36&y=6
5. Matts
Ingemanson, Helen Reisler and Jim Thompson from the New York Rotary Club were interviewed
on Rotary Radio Tuesday July 9, 2002.
http://12.162.161.64/cart/ProductDetail.asp?PR_ProductID=329
You need
Windows Media Player to listen to Rotary Radio. Windows Media Player is
included with Windows Millennium and Windows XP. If you use Windows 95 or
Windows 98, you can download Windows Media Player for free from Microsoft.
Click here to download Windows Media
Player