Welcome to the Rotary Club Of Chinatown, New York

欢迎

Established in 1978, the Chinatown Rotary Club of New York meets every Tuesday at the Hop Lee Restaurant at 16 Mott Street, two blocks south of Canal Street at 1:00PM.

While we celebrate the Chinese Culture and the Chinatown Community, our meetings are conducted in English and we welcome all civic-minded business owners, executives, and professionals to join us for an informal, friendly, authentic, Chinese Banquet-style lunch. .

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Club Officers:

Al Lau: President

Marc Wong: Secretary Email mdmcwong@gmail.com

History of Rotary in China

Rotary has a long and rich history with China. The first Rotary Club in Shanghai was chartered in 1919. By 1947 there were 32 clubs welcoming local businessmen and expatriates, but political changes resulted in the closure of all Rotary clubs on mainland China by 1953.

Rotary leaders met with Chinese officials to reintroduce Rotary as early as 1982. Actively pursing the possibilities of reintroducing Rotary to China, RI presidents have led delegations to China in 1997, 2000 and 2002. The RI Board recognized that the Hong Kong Rotary clubs became part of the People’s Republic of China in 1999.

To demonstrate Rotary’s humanitarian ideals, grants and exchanges have been encouraged. As part of Polio Plus, Rotary has given $22 million to help eliminate polio in China, a milestone that was achieved in 2001. A total of seven Group Study Exchanges have occurred since 1991. In addition, starting in 1997, Rotary clubs and the Rotary Foundation have built credibility by funding $975,000 in humanitarian projects throughout China. In addition, Hong Kong clubs are raising US $1.3 million for Hepatitis B immunization for 1 million babies.

Provisional Rotary Clubs in China
RI granted provisional status to clubs in Beijing and Shanghai in 2001 and appointed an RI advisor to provide orientation to the club members. Currently, District 3450 provides training and support to the provisional clubs with the help of the three year training subsidy from RI.

The 38 members of the Provisional Rotary Club of Shanghai achieved 100% Paul Harris Fellow status three years ago. Their major fundraising supports the Gift of Life program, providing heart surgery to Chinese children. There was a Group Study Exchange with District 5879 in Texas in 2006. In addition, the club administered three Matching Grants, including a water project and a micro credit program to help women start businesses, and sponsors scholarships to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. Nine countries are represented in the club membership, primarily from Europe, North America and Australia. Member classifications include medical consultant, professor, architect, lawyer and business management.

The Provisional Rotary Club of Beijing currently has five Matching Grants, the maximum number allowed. Four of the Matching Grants are for Gift of Life, including video conferencing between Chinese and US heart surgeons. More matching grant applications are pending, including a 3H grant. A Group Study Exchange with District 6490 in Illinois is planned this year. The club members also support Children’s Village in Beijing, a home for 115 children whose parents are in prison, work with a school for autistic children and helped to refurbish schools in Tibet. In addition, they are working to establish Rotaract and Interact in Beijing. The 52 members come from 12 countries, including Chinese from Hong Kong and other countries. Most members are CEO’s or senior managers from a variety of industries including , airline, hotel, banking, consulting, public relations, law, energy, information technology, pharmaceuticals, and automobile manufacturing.

What is Rotary International

Rotary International is a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 31,000 Rotary clubs located in 167 countries.

Rotary International History

The Rotary Club of Chicago, Illinois, USA, the world's first service club was formed on 23rd of February 1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to recapture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The name "Rotary" derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices. Rotary's popularity spread throughout the United States in the decade that followed; clubs were chartered from San Francisco to New York. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents, and the organization adopted the name Rotary International a year later. As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving the professional and social interests of club members. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve communities in need.

The organization's dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its principal motto: Service Above Self. Rotary also later embraced a code of ethics, called The 4-Way Test, that has been translated into hundreds of languages. During and after World War II, Rotarians became increasingly involved in promoting international understanding.

The Rotary International Foundation
An endowment fund, set up by Rotarians in 1917 "for doing good in the world," became a not-for-profit corporation known as The Rotary Foundation in 1928. Upon the death of Paul Harris in 1947, an outpouring of Rotarian donations made in his honor, totaling US$2 million, launched the Foundation's first program — graduate fellowships, now called Ambassadorial Scholarships. Today, contributions to The Rotary Foundation total more than US$80 million annually and support a wide range of humanitarian grants and educational programs that enable Rotarians to bring hope and promote international understanding throughout the world. In 1985, Rotary made a historic commitment to immunize all of the world's children against polio. Working in partnership with nongovernmental organizations and national governments thorough its PolioPlus program, Rotary is the largest private-sector contributor to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians have mobilized hundreds of thousands of PolioPlus volunteers and have immunized more than one billion children worldwide. By the 2005 target date for certification of a polio-free world, Rotary will have contributed half a billion dollars to the cause.As it approached the dawn of the 21st century, Rotary worked to meet the changing needs of society, expanding its service effort to address such pressing issues as environmental degradation, illiteracy, world hunger, and children at risk.

Membership
The organization admitted women for the first time (worldwide) in 1989 and claims more than 145,000 women in its ranks today. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Rotary clubs were formed or re-established throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Today, 1.2 million Rotarians belong to some 31,000 Rotary clubs in 172 countries.

Rotary International Milestones
1905 First Rotary club organized in Chicago, Illinois, USA
1905Second club formed in San Francisco, .
1909 Rotary Club of New York organized
1910. The Rotary Club of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, becomes the first club outside the United States to be officially chartered.
1917 Endowment fund, forerunner of The Rotary Foundation, established.
1932 Four-Way Test formulated by Chicago by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor
1945 Forty-nine Rotarians help draft United Nations Charter in San Francisco
1947 Rotary founder Paul Harris dies;
1947 First 18 Rotary Foundation scholarships granted
1962 First Interact club formed in Melbourne, Florida, USA
1965 Rotary Foundation launches Matching Grants and Group Study Exchange programs
1978 RI's largest convention, with 39,834 registrants, held in Tokyo
1985 Rotary announces PolioPlus program to immunize all the children of the world against polio 1989 Council on Legislation opens Rotary membership to women worldwide
1989 Rotary clubs chartered in Budapest, Hungary, and Warsaw, Poland, for first time in almost 50 years1990 Rotary Club of Moscow chartered first club in Soviet Union
1990-91Preserve Planet Earth program inspires some 2,000 Rotary-sponsored environmental projects
1994Western Hemisphere declared polio-free
1999 Rotary Centers for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution established
2000 Western Pacific declared polio-free
2002 Europe declared polio-free; first class of 70 Rotary Peace Scholars begin study
2003 Rotarians raise more than US$118 million to support the final stages of polio eradication

Rotary International Administration

Rotary is organized at club, district, and international levels to carry out its program of service. Rotarians are members of their clubs, and the clubs are members of the global association known as Rotary International. Each club elects its own officers and enjoys considerable autonomy within the framework of the standard constitution and the constitution and bylaws of Rotary International. Clubs are grouped into 529 Rotary districts, each led by a district governor who is an officer of Rotary International and represents the RI board of directors in the field. Though selected by the clubs of the district, a governor is elected by all of the clubs worldwide meeting in the RI Convention. A 19-member board of directors, which includes the international president and president-elect, administers Rotary International. These officers are also elected at the convention; the selection process for choosing directors and the nominating committee for president are based on zones, each of which comprises approximately 15 districts. The board meets quarterly to establish policies. While the Rotary International president is the highest officer of RI, the chief administrative officer of RI is the general secretary, who heads a staff of about 600 persons working at the international headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois, USA, or in one of seven international offices around the world.

Object of Rotary.
The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster: FIRST. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service; SECOND. High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society; THIRD. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life; FOURTH. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

The Four-Way Test
From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were concerned with promoting high ethical standards in their professional lives. One of the world's most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics isThe Four-Way Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor (who later served as RI president) when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy.This 24-word test for employees to follow in their business and professional lives became the guide for sales, production, advertising, and all relations with dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this simple philosophy. Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The Four-Way Test has been translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of ways.

It asks the following four questions:"Of the things we think, say or do:
Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?"

Four Avenues of Service
Based on the Object of Rotary, the Four Avenues of Service are Rotary's philosophical cornerstone and the foundation on which club activity is based:Club Service focuses on strengthening fellowship and ensuring the effective functioning of the club.Vocational Service encourages Rotarians to serve others through their vocations and to practice high ethical standards.Community Service covers the projects and activities the club undertakes to improve life in its community.International Service encompasses actions taken to expand Rotary's humanitarian reach around the globe and to promote world understanding and peace.
R.I. Mission Statement: The mission of Rotary International is to support its member clubs in fulfilling the Object of Rotary by Fostering unity among member clubs; Strengthening and expanding Rotary around the world; Communicating worldwide the work of Rotary; and Providing a system of international administration.

History of Rotary Youth Exchange
Since 1927, students and host families all over the world have had their horizons broadened and their lives enriched by the generosity of Rotary's Youth Exchange program. Administered by Rotary clubs, districts and multidistrict groups, the program today involves more than 82 countries and over 8,000 students each year.The first documented exchanges date back to 1927, when the Rotary Club of Nice, France, initiated exchanges with European students. Exchanges between clubs in California, USA, and Latin American countries began in 1939, and exchange activities spread to the eastern United States in 1958. In 1972, the RI Board of Directors agreed to recommend Youth Exchange to clubs worldwide as a worthwhile international activity that promotes global peace and understanding.


Rotary International and the United Nations
In 1945, forty-nine Rotary members served in 29 delegations to the United Nations Charter Conference. Rotary still actively participates in UN conferences by sending observers to major meetings and promoting the United Nations in Rotary publications. Rotary International's relationship with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) dates back to a 1943 London Rotary conference that promoted international cultural and educational exchanges. Attended by ministers of education and observers from around the world, and chaired by a past president of RI, the conference was an impetus to the establishment of UNESCO in 1946.

Rotary and Polio Eradication

Wall Street Journal Editorial April 12, 2005

"Today marks the 50th anniversary for the Salk polio vaccine. Poliomyelitis, also know as infantile paralysis, used to be one of childhood's most feared diseases. A few years after Dr. Jonas Salk announced his vaccine on April 12, 1955, nearly every child in the U.S. was protected. Today polio has disappeared from the Americas, Europe and the Western Pacific and is nearly gone from the rest of the world. A too-little known part of this feat is the role played by Rotary, the international businessman's club, which in 20 years adopted the goal of wiping out the disease. Rotary understood that medical breakthroughs are worthless unless people aren't afraid to immunize their children and efficient delivery systems exist to get the vaccine to them. And so it mobilized its members in 30,100 clubs in 166 countries to make it happen. In 1985, when Rotary launched its eradication program, there were an estimated 350,000 new cases of polio in 125 countries. Last Year, 1,263 cases were reported. More than one million Rotary members have volunteered their time or donated money to immunize two billion children in 122 countries. In 1988, Rotary money and its example were the catalyst for a global eradication drive joined by the World Health Organization, Unicef and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. In 2000 Rotary teamed up with the United Nations Foundation to raise $100 million in private money for the program. By the time the world is certified as polio-free probably in 2008-Rotary will have contributed $600 million to its eradication effort. An economist of our acquaintance calls Rotary's effort the most successful private health-care initiative ever. A vaccine-company CEO recently volunteered to us that the work of Rotary and the Gates Foundation, both private groups, has been more effective than any government in promoting vaccines to save lives. It's become fashionable in some quarters to deride civic volunteerism, but Rotary's unsung polio effort deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. "

How to Apply For Membership To The Chinatown Rotary Club.

We encourage all civic-minded business owners, managers, and professionals to explore the benefits of Rotary membership. If you and/or your company would like more information about becoming a part of the legendary Rotary Club of Chinatown, or would like to visit one of our regular meetings contact one of our Club officers.

In recent years, many of New York's largest companies have been encouraging their employees to get involved in local community projects. It is seen as part of their "Corporate Responsibility". It is also true that the owners and managers of New York's smaller size companies want to be good corporate citizens. Some managers, however, are not certain on a plan of action to get involved in the enhance of their organiation's local community.

With this in mind, the Rotary Club of Chinatown would like to encourage your company to consider membership in the Rotary Club of Chinatown. With as little as three or four lunch-hours a month, your organization can be part of making New York a better place to live and work.