The month of May is the only month without a specific Rotary theme. I don’t know why that is. I have always liked May. In fact, it is my favourite month. In our District we customarily have our District Conference in May. The weather is always comfortable in May. My birthday is in May! Face it, May is a great month!
In addition to the other great points about the month of May, we celebrate “Mothers’ Day” is during this best-of-all months. Mothers are pretty important. Without them we would not amount to much! In fact, we wouldn’t amount to anything because we wouldn’t be here. Mothers have that innate ability (even desire) to go through childbirth and be happy about it. I watched two of my children being born and I can attest to the fact that as much as I love my children, I would not endure childbirth to bring them into the world. If it was up to men to have the children, the race would completely die out. We are just not designed to do that. Mothers are indeed special people!
With that thought in mind, I have decided that this first “Snippet” of May is dedicated to the hard working ladies of the Family of Rotary – sometimes referred to as “ANNS.” There is a lot of speculation about where the term “Rotary Anns” originated. Some say it was on a train to a Rotary Convention when the wives of two Rotarians (both named Ann) were introduced when they arrived as “The Rotary Anns.” Another idea is that while members of Rotary Clubs are called Rotarians their wives could be called “Rotariannes” by feminising the word Rotarian. Whatever the origin, the ladies have had a remarkable impact on Rotary.
If you go to the Rotary website you will not find any mention of “Rotary Anns” or “Rotariannes” anywhere. There is some mention of “Inner Wheel” clubs, but even then there is little explanation of who they are, what they do or how they are organised.
For the past twenty years Rotary has welcomed ladies into Rotary Clubs as equal members of the clubs. In our District we have had several lady club president, committee chairs and even assistant governors. One of them is currently leading a GSE Team in New York. We have yet to have a lady DG because none of them have submitted their application, but it can’t be too far off in the future.
Nevertheless, we have some very active “Anns Clubs” and “Inner Wheel Clubs” in the District here are reports from four of them!
Happy Reading!
DG Patrick
