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For the Club President or
the Aims and Objects Committee

The Rotary Program

Institutions, like people, are known for what they do. What Rotary clubs
and Rotarians undertake to do is called the Rotary program. If the clubs and
their members perform that program well, Rotary as an institution will be
well and favorably known. It is the purpose of this pamphlet to help Rotary
clubs and Rotarians to such an understanding of Rotary and its program that

good performance will result.

What Rotary Is

Rotary is the organized body of Ro-
tary clubs and Rotarians, the spirit
which animates them, the principles
and practices and precedents which
guide them, the objects of service they
seek to encourage and foster. In brief,
Rotary is “a world fellowship of busi-
ness and professional men united in the
ideal of service.” A Rotarian must be a
man of personal character and recog-
nized standing in his business and
community and, since the ideal of serv-
ice means thoughtfulness of and help-
fulness to others, he must have a will-
ingness and an ability to serve others
in his many relationships.

The Rotary Club

Rotary is organized on the basis of
one Rotary.club in each community
(i.e., a city, town or locality with com-
mon business interests). In each club,
the ‘basis of membership is one man
from each distinct business or profes-
sion within the community and he
must hold an executive position. This
is a restrictive provision, it is true, but
it produces an inclusive, not exclusive,
membership for it makes possible the
recognition of all useful occupations.

It enables the club to be a true cross-
section of the business and professional
life of the community. It develops fel--
lowship based on diversity, not similar-
ity of interest (the grocer meets the
doctor; the banker, the printer; the

-manufacturer, the haberdasher; etc.).

It prevents the predominance of any
one business or professional group. It
furnishes an atmosphere free from the
restraints that might prevail in the
presence of competitors. The club is
intended to be really a club—a body of
men who are knit together in bonds of
personal friendship.

Weekly Meetings

Rotary clubs hold their meetings
weekly, usually in connection with a
luncheon or dinner; and regular at-
tendance (a minimum of 60 per cent
of the meetings in each six months of
the fiscal year) is one of the statutory
conditions of membership in the club.

Nothing in the principle of selective
membership means the exclusion of
business rivalry in order to afford non-
competitive opportunity for business.
Rotarians are specifically forbidden to
attempt to use the privilege of member-
ship for commercial advantage. The
honor of the movement in this partic-

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