Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. In more than 160 countries worldwide, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 30,000 Rotary clubs.

Rotary club membership represents a cross-section of the community's business and professional men and women. Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.

The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career development.

Although Each Rotary club develops its own service programs, all Rotarians worldwide are united in a campaign for the global eradication of polio. In the 1980s, Rotarians raised US$240 million to immunize the children of the world; by 2005, Rotary's centenary year and the target date for the certification of a polio-free world, the Polio Plus program will have contributed US$500 million to this cause. In addition, Rotary has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at national immunization days in polio-endemic countries around the world. The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International is a not-for-profit corporation that promotes world understanding through international humanitarian service programs and educational and cultural exchanges. It is supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and others who share its vision of a better world. Since1947, the Foundation has awarded more than US$1.1 billion in humanitarian and educational grants, which are initiated and administered by local Rotary clubs and districts.

Membership Matters!

Our members are our most important asset. They are the force that allows Rotary to carry out its many humanitarian efforts and achieve its mission. . A primary goal of our club is to continually expand our membership with men and women who have the interest and ability to get involved in service and humanitarian projects.

• Membership in a Rotary club offers a number of benefits, including:
• effecting change within the community;
• advancing business and professional contacts;
• developing leadership skills;
• gaining an understanding of — and having an impact on — international humanitarian issues.

The membership process

Prospective members must: hold — or be retired from — a professional, proprietary, executive, or managerial position; have the capacity to meet the club's weekly attendance or community project participation requirements; live or work within the locality of the club or the surrounding area.

Rotary membership is by invitation only. If you would like to learn more about the Rotary Club of Gananoque and our various service projects, just contact our membership committee chair :
           Bill Webster - Bus. Phone (613) 382-5260
            Email bwebster@gananoque.org 
or our secretary as listed on our home page, or speak to any Rotarian you may know. We will immediately get in touch with you personally with more information about Rotary,  provide you with a Prospective Member Application Form and make sure that you are invited to join us for one or more of our meetings.

Of course if you want to find out lots more about Rotary you can go to Rotary International's great web site at  www.rotary.org