Welcome Gregor Heidemann, Mary Zaunbrecher and the Rotary Theme 2012 - 13

Sad news.  Our condolences to Nic Hammerschmidt who's mother died last week.


Nici we are all thinking of you.

Our speaker this week is Mary Zaunbrecher of the Rotary Club of Crowley, LA.  She was named Humanitarian of the Year by the Crowley Chamber of Commerce in 2011.  She was a teacher for many years in various Catholic High Schools, teaching Maths and PE!  An unlikely combination!  She has been active in all sorts of projects both within and outside Rotary over a long period of time.  This has ranged from Hospice, to helping with a Soup Kitchen to organising and assisting with building materials after Hurricane Rita....the list is endless.  After our meeting she will be visiting the 5 C's


The Business Meeting

A Concert at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Braamfontein

Last week's business meeting concentrated on the impending concert with The Black Tie Ensemble....shortly to be renamed "Voice".  It will be at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Braamfontein on Easter Sunday afternoon, the 8th April. Prepare your friends to buy tickets....we must sell as many as possible.....  This is the beginning of what can become a very worthwhile joint collaboration so we must make it work.

The Handbag Project is a very successful ongoing one.  Congratulations to all concerned.  It's blankets next!

A highlight of the meeting was welcoming Gregor Heidemann as a member of our Club.  That brings us up to a membership of 35.....and there's more to come!

Thanks to Don Lindsay many members of the Club are becoming career cycle race marshalls.  I haven't any pictures of the last race but we'll certainly have some of the Big One!

I don't know what is happening on the 5th Wednesday yet...I've only just realised we are having one this month myself!

'Peace Through Service' is 2012-13 RI theme

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RI President-elect Sakuji Tanaka unveiled the 2012-13 RI theme, Peace Through Service,during the opening plenary session of the 2012 International Assembly, a training event for incoming Rotary district governors. Rotary Images/Alyce Henson

Rotary International on Facebook

RI President-elect Sakuji Tanaka will ask Rotarians to build Peace Through Service in 2012-13. 

Tanaka unveiled the RI 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. 

Tanaka, 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," Tanaka 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." 

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.”