Notes from the Team Leader: Rotary Around the World

Rotary is truly an international organization. Things are done pretty much the same way no matter what country you are in, yet there are subtle differences. As someone who has attended ten or so district conferences, I was intrigued about some of what I saw at the District 3860 district conference in Davao, Mindinao.



In broad strokes the district conference in the Philippines was similar to the others I have attended. They all place a high value on celebrating Rotary accomplishments and recognizing individual Rotarians for their contributions. But there were two developments that were new to me.


First, I was stunned to see so many Rotary Clubs in the district honored for being 100 percent Paul Harris Fellow Clubs. Paul Harris was the founder of Rotary. A Rotary Club in which every member has donated a minimum $1,000 to the Rotary Foundation gets to be a 100 percent Paul Harris Fellow Club. I have never encountered such a club in the U.S.


This fact speaks to membership makeup in Filipino and U.S. Rotary Clubs. In the Philippines, Rotarians tend to represent the highest-earning business executives. In the U.S., Rotarians are often a more economically diverse group.


The focus of the district conferences appears to be a little different. In the Philippines, all the business was conducted in plenary sessions. In the U.S., it is more typical to mix plenary sessions with a number of breakout sessions. U.S. district conferences tend to be more structured in terms of time, with activities being tightly scheduled. The district conference in Davao had, shall we say, a slightly looser concept of adhering to the schedule, but in a way I don't quite understand, everything that needed to happen eventually got accomplished. I appreciate the GSE program for making it possible for me to attend my first international district conference.

Conference scenes