'VOCATIONAL service is something that no one else—no leader, speaker or
committee—can do for you. It expresses the prime function of your club as
proclaimed in The Object of Rotary.
"To encourage and foster the ideal of service as the basis of all worthy
enterprise . . ."
That means in particular your "enterprise"—your daily work—the business or
profession described in the classification you represent in your Rotary
club. The privilege of holding this classification entails the
obligation—"to put Rotary to work where you work"—to make service rather
than self the basis of every principle, policy and procedure in your job.
It is a large order.
Many find it difficult. Some avoid its personal application by lip service
to generalities. Others are frustrated by not knowing where to start.
Service is My Business is an attempt to surmount these obstacles by
conveying the meaning of vocational service in terms of actual
experiences. Reading about them, you should become more keenly aware of
the opportunities that lie close to hand.
To those Rotarians whose efforts have provided the substance in these
pages, .this little book is respectfully dedicated, and if the situations
described do not always reflect your particular problems you are urged to
bring your own flame to these fagots, to seek in your own enterprise or
calling the specific challenges to make service your business.
NOTE: As a member of the Aims and Objects Committee for
1946-47, Past President Percy Hodgson saw the need of making vocational
service more realistic for the individual Rotarian. This idea was seconded
warmly by the late James Watchurst who was on the committee the following
year. The enthusiasm of these two business men resulted in the first
publication of Service Is My Business.
