The Rotary Family

“I fine Anna, for not saying hello to me on the street as I ran past and waved.” 

It is my second Rotary meeting in Honiara and I’m already being held to task by the “Sergeant-at-Arms”. I put my money in the wooden basket and make a face of shock, laughing the whole time. This section of the Rotary Club of Honiara, is quite hilarious and was very new to me. Members shout out gripes about each other and put a bill in the wooden basket, and the offender has to put in the same amount. So you better be on your top game around town, never snubbing a fellow Rotarian or drive to fast down the road, lest one of your Rotary friends will note it and hold you to account at the coming meeting. It is quite good fun, everyone laughing the whole time and throwing accusations around the room, some slightly exaggerated, all for the benefit of the Foundation fund.

Outgoing President Sebastian Ilala
makes a speech

I went to the Rotary Club my first few days in Honiara. It is a wonderfully boisterous, friendly and welcoming group. I feel so lucky to be part of the Rotary family and have people interested in the Foundation’s work to support Peace Fellows to study conflict in depth and spend time in Applied Field Placements – the Rotary’s official name for what I’m doing here in the Solomon Islands. I’ve always loved being Quaker because if I show up at the Friends Meeting anywhere in the world I feel welcomed and connected to those people. While Rotary is an enormous global organization and quite different from a faith community, I have a similar sense of being welcomed and when attending a club, instantly having a community of people willing to get to know me and assist me, if need be.

The Rotary Club of Honiara meets at the Honiara hotel in a room with lots of old photographs of 1960s movie stars machéed to the wall. It’s a bit dark with a bar in an adjoining room, but on Tuesday night it is brightened by the Rotary banners of many Rotary Presidents years and club banners. The Club is in the evening and takes it’s time not like the 1 hour or 1.5 hour clubs at lunch or breakfast that I’ve visited so far in Indiana and Sweden.

Outgoing President Sebastian Ilala hands over
to incoming President Aldrin Bekala

Here the club often spends Saturday morning unloading containers of supplies for schools or medical facilities that have been collected in other places and sent to benefit facilities and people in the Solomons. The Club has a bunch of expats – mainly Australians - in addition to Solomon Islanders. The beginning of July was the turn over of the Club President to Aldrin Bekala from Sebastian Ilala. In Aldrin’s speech he said something that I think well encompasses what I have come to appreciate about Rotary:

“Being a Rotarian is not just about attending our weekly meetings… It means accepting our communities as our responsibility.”

In the weekly speakers at Rotary Clubs, you hear for community or state or business or visiting leaders. Talking about the work they are passionate about. Identifying problems or solutions they are dedicating their lives to and often through their fundraising or volunteer efforts, Rotary clubs not only listen to these presentations for their education, but also take action.

New Rotary Club of Honiara leadership team.

I not only feeling incredibly lucky to have received such a generous scholarship from this organization, but also to have been given a window into people around the world working in small and large ways to change the world for the better.