Recollections of Rotary Reaching Back 40+ years! (Charter Member David Bradley)

When Rotary began not 40 years ago but 119 years ago in Chicago USA, the communications network was profoundly different to what we are used to today. 

Reflecting on this, I believe it has some bearing on the structure of Rotary.  (It is hard for even octogenarians like me to imagine not having automatic telephone exchanges enabling you to call up across the world, although you needed to book a trunk call to phone Johannesburg).  By 1905 there were telephones in Chicago but group calls like we make on Skype were not even dreamt about. 

The concept of having a fellowship of people of disparate business or professional occupations was novel but it did not seem so strange when you found that there was a powerful common factor – the desire to help others.  In fact it was realised that this added huge strength to the collective because you were then able to call on fellow members for skills to tackle projects out of an individual’s reach. 

Basic Rotary rules required diligent attendance and as business contacts broadened the possibility of visiting a Rotary Club in another location was factored in to be included in your attendance.  These visits were titled Make-ups.

And so we come to my early days as a Member of RC Cape Town.  My Mentor ran the family business, SA Woollen Mills in Observatory and they had a wool-washery in Wellington.  So, I was invited to come along to do my first Make-Up at the RC Wellington.  Later we also visited RC Malmesbury and Paarl.

I was bitten by the bug to have a perfect attendance and that meant not missing a single week in a Rotary Year.  If you could not attend you Club’s regular meeting, you had the opportunity to do a Make-Up, either the week before or the week after!  (So rarely was there a valid excuse for not being able to record your attendance.)

I looked up the list of local Rotary Clubs around the Cape Peninsula and West of the Hottentots Holland Mountains and gradually took on the personal project of visiting all of them.  I never attained that goal but visited most and so gained insight into Rotary projects in other Clubs and met a wide range of professions and skills.

 (There was a joke at the time, “How can you obtain a membership with no more than two persons with the same Occupation Classification?  Answer – Easy: Farmer Sheep, Farmer Dairy, Farmer Wheat ….”)
When Rotary International relaxed the Attendance rules so that a Member who missed 4 consecutive meeting no longer had their membership terminated; the desire to keep up attendance waned and even our Club decided to stop issuing Certificates for 100% Attendance.  Eventually I broke my run of perfect attendance after 38 years.  By no means a record – Our much admired Member, Past District Governor Dennis Figov, had more than 50 years of 100% attendance.  (He told the story of having a serious motor accident in Zambia and his Rotary Club held their Club meeting in his hospital in order to preserve Dennis’ 100%!).

In many respects we are poorer as a result of no longer consciously seeking to widen our circle.  By way of example, I would never have driven around Los Angeles LAX airport runways and looked behind the scenes if I had not sat next to the Airport Engineer at the LAX Airport Rotary Club that morning!   It has been a profound privilege to have attended many Clubs in many Countries. Sometimes language barriers were huge for me, but there was always a friendly member of that Club that keyed you in.

Perhaps readers will think about Making-Up and widening their Rotary Network, I guarantee that you will be the richer!