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As everyone who is
involved in the upper management or ownership of a business can explain, there is
a page in every P & L (Profit and Loss) statement called the balance
sheet. On it are two listings important to this project. The first
is “Retained Earnings.” Retained earnings are the value that
management has left in the company, instead of disbursing to the
owners or shareholders.
This project is a
“Retained Earning” of Rotary. The history, heritage and good deeds
done by the members of Rotary clubs around
the world are its retained
earnings. If they weren’t retained, organizations such as the United
Nations wouldn’t call on Rotarians to help end polio in the world.
Scholars from Rotary countries wouldn’t apply for scholarships to
study their specialties in other countries, and countries wouldn’t
elect or appoint Rotarians or Rotary Scholars to important
positions.
The second listing is “Intangible Assets.” Intangible assets are
those unique elements that make the company different or more
valuable. Two such assets are reputation and name recognition. The
tenets and symbols of Rotary are its “Intangible Assets.”
From the adoption of a platform in 1911,
to the ringing of a bell to call the regular meeting to order; from
the adoption in 1923 of the
Rotary wheel with its keyway, to the
4-Way Test written by Herb
Taylor in 1932; these and more are part and parcel of Rotary’s
“Intangible Assets.”
And, it is these elements, philosophical and graphical, integral and
spiritual, that comprise the basis of what Rotary is and means
today. It was not always so. Between the late 1910s and the early
1930s, Rotary underwent an evolution from a business-oriented
organization to a service-oriented organization. The knowledge of
Rotary’s Tenets and Symbols will help everyone when trying to
understand Rotary’s Evolution.
Tenets and symbols are an important part of the History.
Many are those things we see every week at meetings and maybe fail
to remember.
This project, the History, is an exhaustive study of all
of the tenets and symbols. Some, the
mottos and the
platform are mostly complete.
Others are being worked upon, and portions will be posted as they
are finished.
There is a page on the
Object of Rotary, (Also
see the RGHF "search" for the Object of Rotary)
and
The Four
Way Test, yet there is much more to be written on both.
All of these
pages feature multiple links to take you to other reference material
within this project, and a good portion of the source material is in
the form of complete books that are online, within one of the
websites that constitute The History
of Rotary.
Doug Rudman |
