The Rotary Club of Grahamstown turned 60 recently, having received its charter from Rotary International on 19 October 1949.
The club had 22 members at the outset and has seldom exceeded 40 members, but it has always punched above its weight as one of the most active clubs in the country.
The Rotary Club of Grahamstown turned 60 recently, having received its charter from Rotary International on 19 October 1949.
The club had 22 members at the outset and has seldom exceeded 40 members, but it has always punched above its weight as one of the most active clubs in the country.
There is a lot of talk about self-help in South Africa, but even more important is helping others who are not able to help themselves.
Self-help may have been the initial aim of Paul Harris and other founder members of the movement in Chicago in 1905, but within five years, their club had espoused a different outlook. Incidentally, the name ‘Rotary’ comes from the members’ habit of meeting in rotation at each other’s homes and businesses. Rotary’s first motto, adopted at its first convention in 1910 was: "He profits most who serves best." At the 1950 convention this became modified to: "Service, not self"; and in 1989 the motto took its present form as the more emphatic "Service above self."
Rotary’s concept of service caught on early in South Africa, but took a while to reach smaller centres such as Grahamstown. By 1927, the Port Elizabeth club was considering establishing a club in Grahamstown, but it was only in 1949 that the extension actually happened.
The first President of the Grahamtown club was Harry Rushmere. Other charter members were: Alan Selwyn Brown, Rex Butler, Cyril Dicks, Reg Griffiths, Hugh Grocott, Pat McGahey, John Neville, Mike Rautenbach, Athol Stirk, Bobby van der Riet and Frank White.
The founder members immediately embarked on projects including staging a boxing match in the City Hall to raise funds. They also established the first home for the aged in Grahamstown, Settlers Close, and were active in founding the Westfield Boys Hostel for the sons of servicemen killed or incapacitated in the Second World War.
Other projects involved the children of Woodville Orphanage, Piet Retief Orphanage in Riebeeck East; Temba TB Hospital; Hobbiton-on-Hogsback; vegetable gardens for the Prince Alfred Infirmary (now incorporated into Rhodes’ Nelson Mandela Hall); and sponsoring children to Veld and Vlei (now Outward Bound).
A more enduring fundraiser than boxing, Carols by Candlelight was introduced in 1953, and has been going strong ever since. In 1961 Stanley Shuttleworth (the grandfather of the billionaire geek Afronaut who founded Hip2B2) embarked on the Brookshaw Home project on the Woodville site which has occupied Rotarians in fundraising, driving and other voluntary activities, such as running the well-known kudu burger stall at the annual Brookshaw fête, ever since.
Later, Rotarians extended their interest in helping the aged to a major project at the McKaiser Home.
The club’s capacity for service in the local area expanded greatly when the Rotary Foundation elected to match funds raised by two or more Rotary Clubs or Rotary Districts in two or more countries on a dollar-for dollar basis.
Awards from $5 000 to $150 000 were made. When these are doubled (because they are matched by the individual clubs involved) and converted into rands, the result is frequently in the hundreds of thousands even though only tens of thousands might be contributed by the Grahamstown club.
Taking advantage of this lucrative but complicated opportunity began tentatively in the late 80s, but really took off from the late 90s.
The catalysts were a couple of extraordinary Rotary Ambassadorial scholars from the United States who helped to forge enduring links between the Grahamstown club and their sponsoring clubs; a new member, Thelma Henderson; and the presiding (and enduring) genius of Bill Mills, the guru of the matching grant, in association with leaders for individual projects too numerous to mention here.
Group Study Exchange leaders, such as Bugs Wilmot, also took the opportunity while abroad to forge enduring links between the Grahamstown Club and others. Other ambassadorial scholars, such as Lisa Morris from the UK, have continued to make a difference by mobilising their home clubs.
Details of the first 35 matching-grant-driven projects are on the Rotary Club of Grahamstown website: http://people.ru.ac.za/amwd/rotary/.
Since the last update of the site, 10 other projects completed, with two more under construction. The local beneficiaries of the larger projects include: Hospice; Gadra; Mary Waters, George Dickerson, Archie Mbolekwa; Graeme and Ntaba Maria; schools at Hope Fountain and Peddie; St Mary Day Care Centre; the Eloxweni Street Children’s Shelter; Brookshaw; Settler’s Hospital Palliative Care wards; and St John’s Eye Clinic.
If the new matching grants (covering literacy kits for Gadra Education and equipment for Hospice, total R262 500) are finalised before July 2010, then the 60th Rotary Year will see the accumulated total of Matching Grants exceed R4 million.
Successful as it has been, fundraising has been only part of the club’s contribution. Before fundraising was revolutionised by matching grants, the club had established a tradition of making the more modest sums it raised go further through hands-on service by its members.
They have spent thousands of hours over the years, renovating buildings and rooms, driving, hosting, facilitating youth training camps and liaising with spin-off associations such as Rotaract and Interact at Rhodes and local schools.
People talk of national treasures but perhaps we need a concept of local treasures too. Such a concept would certainly apply to the Rotary Club of Grahamstown over its 60 years of service above self.
