|
 Rotary is a global organisation of individuals in business and professional occupations, who are united in providing humanitarian service, encouraging high ethical standards in all vocations and helping build goodwill and peace throughout the world.
 The first Rotary Club was founded in 1905 in Chicago by attorney Paul P Harris: on February 23, 1905, Harris held the first meeting with three friends, Silvester Schiele, coal merchant, Gustave E. Loehr, mines engineer and Hiram E. Shorey, tailor. The members chose the name Rotary because they rotated club meetings to each member's office each week.
The Objective of Rotary is 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.
 These objectives are further set against the "Rotarian four-way test", used to see if a planned action is compatible with the Rotarian spirit. The test was developed by Rotarian and entrepreneur Herbert J. Taylor during the Great Depression as a set of guidelines for restoring faltering businesses and was adopted as the standard of ethics by Rotary in 1942. It is still seen as a standard for ethics in business management:
Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build good will and better friendships?
Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
Links:
Rotary International |
