TRF Trustee Chair Bob Scott's keynote presentation at the 2008 International Assembly. January 16, 2008

I am very happy to be here and honored to speak to you about The Rotary Foundation today.

Last July, I was very surprised and slightly overwhelmed when Past RI President Bhichai Rattakul stepped down as trustee chair of The Rotary Foundation, and suddenly I was thrust into this challenging leadership position. Fortunately, Past President Bhichai is the kind of Rotary leader who understands the importance of collaboration and continuity, and he had actively sought my input when developing the Foundation goals for the year. When he resigned as chair, I inherited a very healthy and dynamic Rotary Foundation – a Foundation I wholeheartedly believe in and support.

I am glad to report that our Rotary Foundation is again enjoying a successful year. While we have a long way to go until June, our annual giving is up around 10 percent from this time last year. Giving to our Permanent Fund is up. We have exciting news about our PolioPlus program, and I will go into that in greater detail tomorrow morning.

Your Trustees approved a record number of competitive Matching Grants at their meeting last October, and the overall number of grant applications continues to grow. We received more Health, Hunger and Humanity Grant applications than ever before, and the quality of these applications was also better than ever before.

It looks like the Group Study Exchange program will set a new record for teams traveling to another country in 2007-08. The number of Ambassadorial Scholars increased this year, reversing a downward trend we had been experiencing for the past several years. And the Rotary Centers for International studies has become a great new beacon of hope for increasing the possibilities for peace.

That brings me to the goal we all share as Rotarians: Peace is possible.

A 15-year-old Irish student by the name of Nick Laird wrote the following in a Rotary-sponsored essay competition:

Eight men died on their way home from work. Builders, joiners, locals, friends… legitimate targets. How can they be legitimate targets? How can anyone be a legitimate target? How dare the terrorists take the same shape as me? How dare they look ordinary like humans? They are evil. They live in the shadows. They do not belong here on earth. They do not deserve life when they take it away so casually... A man I used to work with was killed. Blown away. It is hard not to succumb to hate. Remain numb. I will not succumb to hate. Peace come stumbling soon.

I have hope that peace will come soon through our Rotary Peace Fellows. There are now about 230 graduates of our Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution. They are working in conflict zones to broker peace, help refugees displaced by war, and attack the root causes of the conflict itself. We Rotarians have given them the means to do their job, but it’s an enormous challenge and we need many more peacemakers to resolve the existing conflicts and prevent future ones.

Just as I believe that polio eradication is realistic, I am convinced that peace is possible. Look at Europe, which is celebrating years of near peace. Nick Laird’s Ireland is almost at peace, in way that no one would ever have predicted. Consider the days of tranquility brokered by Rotarians, when opposing forces lay down their guns so that children can be immunized against polio. And think about a Rotary convention, where people on either side of any conflict can come together under the banner of service.

And think about your attendance here this week. You are an example to the world showing that men and women of diverging views can indeed break bread together in an atmosphere of fellowship and friendship.
Yes, peace is possible.

Not long ago, I was sitting on a balcony situated on the banks of the Nile in Cairo, Egypt, after a very long day in the Sahara desert oases helping to immunize children against polio.

It was early evening and the sun was setting. The early building lights were coming on mixing and blending with the redness of the sunset, the dinner boats were starting up and the pyramids as I looked west loomed very large with a sort of sandy, hazy pink color.

I was tired but very unsettled, and indeed restless and irritated, when by rights it is the time of day to feel relaxed and content from a busy day.

On that day I had seen a little 16-month old girl with acute polio. She had no name. Her mother was ashamed that her baby had a paralyzed arm. Good God, I thought, for 60 cents this need not have happened. The vaccine has been available since 1954. We were too late. Rotary was too late.

Rotary events such as this assembly are happy, feel-good events. They are a time to look back, to look at the present, and to look toward the future.

James Downey, descendant of a Newfoundland fisher family who became president of the University of New Brunswick, noted:

“We move forward in time, not as a driver drives a car, but as a rower rows a boat on a foggy day, taking our bearings for the most part from the shoreline from whence we've come. Paradoxical as it may seem, it is the past that is always in front of us; it is the future that lies behind us.”

So please join me. Let us get into our imaginary rowboat. It is early morning on the lake, and the sun is just rising behind us as we pull on the oars and move away from the dock. It is calm and there is a low lying mist; one of these made in heaven times

Let me see you pulling on the oars. That’s good.

It is interesting what we see, what kind of world Rotary was born into.

Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts was founded in 1908. By 1910 William Booth’s Salvation Army was firmly established in the United States. Skyscrapers – pioneered by architects of the First Chicago School – dotted the skylines of our big cities such as the Unity building in Chicago, home to the first Rotary club meeting.

Rotary had become international with a club in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1910.

We are well out into the open water now and we can see more clearly. It is 1920 and the world was still getting over the war to end all wars, and the League of Nations was having its first meetings.

The Permanent Court of International Justice — precursor of the International Court of Justice — was established. Radio, silent movies, and newsreel are the entertainment of the day.

As we enjoy the morning sunshine what about Rotary in the1920s?

A Rotary Foundation “to do good in the world” had been suggested by Past President Arch Klumph in 1917. Membership surpassed 100,000. International Service becomes the fourth Avenue of Service.

Clubs were being chartered in many parts of the world. Rotary and its Foundation was truly becoming an international organization of note.

In our rowboat the sun is high overhead and the light shines so we see clearly through the decades between the so-called great wars when the Depression brings misery virtually everywhere. Yet we see the triumphs of flights across the Atlantic, the continuing development of communication. Then the nightmare of World War II and the postwar era when we see Rotary growing in almost every corner of the earth. To help heal the wounds of a war-torn world, Rotary makes its first real commitment to international understanding by creating the Rotary Fellowships for Advanced Study in 1947. This has since blossomed into the Foundation’s Ambassadorial Scholarships.

The lake, as often at the mid part of the day, is rougher and we have to dig our oars in and pull harder. And as we pull we get angry. The harsh reality is that the world is still in great turmoil almost at every turn.

Racial and religious wars, genocide, environmental catastrophes, disease, hunger, poverty. The scourge of polio is still with us. The world at times seems completely unhinged: the ultimate in entertainment is that now both sides of a conflict can watch their battles on TV.

Nightly you and I watch hideous examples of man’s inhumanity to man. We do a body count, have a cup of coffee, or switch channels to see a fake reality show, and go to bed, often without another thought. Without another thought and nobody cares …

My friends, as we pull hard on our oars through the choppy waters, perhaps we think again. We remember we are Rotarians belonging to an organization with a Foundation for peace, an organization that can constantly offer hope through educational and charitable projects.

The Ambassadorial Scholars program began in 1947; Matching Grants and GSE in 1965; since 1985 we have been engaged in the battle to eradicate polio. All this, thanks to the seemingly unending generosity of Rotarians.

And so we pull harder on our oars to move through the troubled waters and are enthusiastic as we realize we really can Do Good in the World.

Rotary's membership is 1.2 million and rising. Rotary is in 200+ countries and geographical areas, and in the last 10 years, a conservative estimate is that Rotary has directly affected the lives of 20 million to 30 million people, and then we have the ripple effect of two billion children having been immunized against polio.

The baby brother of my nameless little girl in the Sahara desert will not get polio.

My friends, our day on the lake is passing and as we row around a point we are thankfully in calmer waters. We row into the setting sun and as we look over our shoulders once again it is difficult to see. What of the future? Will we stop being at each others’ throats? Will we have enough clean water? Will our grandchildren shrivel up in an overheated world? Will we ever truly live in peace?

The graduates of our peace and conflict resolution program will have a profound impact on our world.

Eradicate polio? Yes we will.

The Permanent Fund will increase by monies left in wills by increasing numbers of benefactors of The Rotary Foundation. We must not fail all the generous donors, many of whom are in this room. The slogan Every Rotarian Every Year will, I am sure, become a reality. Already our annual giving has nearly doubled in four years.

I can hear you saying he is just a dreamer but like John Lennon

“You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one.”

And this is what we do as Rotarians, we Make Dreams Real.

The sun is now low in the sky – a sky brilliant red– the crickets are beginning their nocturnal anthem, the world seems such a peaceful place. A quick glance over our shoulders to see the dock. Did we hear? Did we see? Could it be? Tomorrow's challenge whispering to you. District governors-elect

In this world there is a need for some to rise above the rest,
To rise above the average life by giving of their best
Would you be those that dare to try when challenged by the task?
To rise to heights you’ve never seen, is that too much to ask?
This is your day, great purpose to achieve
Accept the challenge of your goals and in yourselves believe,
You will be proud of what you've done, when at the close of day,
You look back from whence you’ve come, and peace will come to stay.

Thank you for the good you have done in the world,
The good you are doing in the world,
The good you will do in the world.