Rotary
International President Kalyan Banerjee
RI President Kalyan Banerjee asked
Rotarians at the 2011 RI Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana,
USA, on 25 May to go back to their communities and think of “new
and different ways” to take on the challenges of today.
“We are the doers of our
communities, the leaders, the ones who are most involved, who
see the problems and have the means to find the solutions,”
Banerjee said. “I am asking you to reach within and unleash your
inner power and then use it to embrace everything and everyone
around you.”
Banerjee said Rotarians should
be guided by three emphases -- the family, continuity, and
change -- as they work to support the 2011-12 RI theme, Reach
Within to Embrace Humanity.
Family is the first emphasis,
he said, because the family is the starting point for everything
Rotary is trying to accomplish.
“The family is the building
block of the community,” Banerjee said. “If we wish to see a
world that is more joyous, we first have to make sure that the
families of the world are more joyous, that they have the things
they need to be happy, to thrive, and move forward. So we have
to look at housing, at clean water and sanitation, at health
care, at all the issues affecting mothers and children.”
Continuity involves continuing
and strengthening those things Rotarians do well, said Banerjee.
“There are so many areas in
which we have been successful -- working for clean, safe water;
spreading literacy; working in so many ways with Generation
Next, our youth. And of course, our greatest project, polio
eradication,” he said. “If we want to really achieve the
impossible, we have to have not only persistence, but vision --
we have to be looking past what we are doing now, at what we can
and should be doing in the days and years to come.”
District
Governor Gordon Matthews
Gordon grew up in an
agricultural community in eastern Arkansas. His father and
grandfather were both Rotarians and president of their club.
Prior to his great grandfather moving to Arkansas, Gordon's
family members were settlers in Georgia near Athens in the early
1800s.
He graduated from the Univ. of
Arkansas and earned an MBA from the University of Texas at
Austin in 1968 and from there received a direct commission as an
officer in the U.S. Army. After two years on active duty he and
his wife moved to Atlanta where he became a CPA and a manager of
management information systems projects throughout the Southeast
for an international consulting firm.
During a consulting project in
Savannah he met the President of a multi-state metals
distributor, Chatham Steel Corp., and this led to his relocating
his growing family to Savannah in 1977 and for 22 years he was
CFO of Chatham Steel. Gordon's daughter Kathryn is a licensed
architect in Austin, Texas and his son John manages commercial
real estate funds in Atlanta.
He has been President of
Historic Savannah Foundation, Leadership Savannah, and the Tybee
Post Theater. He continues to work as a management consultant to
private businesses helping CEOs and their leadership teams to be
more effective.
Gordon is past-president of the
Rotary Club of Savannah-East. His first district involvement
came when he led 6920's GSE team to Bolivia in 1999. His second
GSE service was to lead our team which went to Poland and
Ukraine in 2001. He participated in a Polio National
Immunization day in India in 2010. He serves on the Board of
Directors of Medical Equipment Transport Services and has
managed Matching Grants in India and South America.
From these experiences he
developed a passion about Rotary as a truly international
service organization. He was recognized as the Rotarian of the
Year for the Savannah Area in 2000. He is a Multiple Paul Harris
Fellow and a Will Watt Fellow. In 2009 he received the Citation
for Meritorious Service from the Rotary Foundation “for
furthering of better understanding and friendly relations of
people of the world”.
Gordon Matthews has been
selected to serve as 6920’s District Governor for the Rotary
year 2011-2012. With international experience in business and in
Rotary International, he is excited to have the opportunity to
convey the importance of the many ways Rotary serves those in
need in less developed countries.
Rotary
Club of Effingham County President Mark Winters
After graduating from Effingham
County High School in 1978, Mark Winters joined the United
States Marine Corps. He is married to Belinda Miller Winters,
who is a graduate of Groves High School. Both Mark and Belinda
attended college together and eventually earned their doctorates
of education from Georgia Southern University. They have taught
in Miami, Florida prior to returning to Effingham County.
Belinda currently teaches gifted education at Marlow Elementary
School. Mark has been in school administration since 1997. He is
currently serving as principal of South Effingham High School.
Mark Winters was inducted into
the Rotary Club of Effingham County in 2004. He has served on
the board of directors, as president-elect, and as club
president in 2009-2010. When Club President, Leland Sanders,
took a job outside of the Effingham County area in May 2011,
Mark completed the remainder of that year as club president, and
he will continue on as president for the 2011-2012 year as well.
It was the efforts of the
Rotary Club of Effingham County in the school system that first
impressed Mark. After learning about Rotary International, Mark
became even more impressed with the efforts to eradicate polio.
Judy Winters, Mark’s mother, was infected with the polio virus
when she was only two years of age. Therefore, Rotary’s local
compassion and the international initiatives resonated with the
passion in Mark’s heart.
