President Diane Koster

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

President Diane brought Rotary back to the basics in her first message to the Rock Island Rotary Club. She reminded them of the Object of Rotary: to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

• FIRST, the development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
• SECOND, high ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations,
  and the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
• THIRD, the application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’s personal, business, and community life;
• FOURTH, the advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

The new Rotary initiative for the 2008-09 year, Make Dreams Real, will see 1.2 million Rotarians worldwide working to provide vaccines, oral rehydration therapies, accessible health care for mothers and newborns and other simple interventions to assure that not only will more babies go on to survive, but go on to live healthy, productive lives and make their dreams real for generations .

Read President Diane's Full Inaugural Address >>