A Message from the Club President

It is a great honor to serve as the Brevard Club President during the first year of Rotary's second century.  I am grateful for this opportunity and look forward to working with each club member.

This year's international theme is SERVICE ABOVE SELF.  It is a great emphasis that captures the essence of what it means to be a Rotarian.  We are to serve human needs within our club, community, country, and world.  We are to do for others and not think first about our self.  That is a message a United Methodist minister of even my limited abilities can proclaim on Sunday morning.

Two Rotary priorities for 2005-6 will be literacy and clean drinking water.  A good mind is a terrible thing to waste.  The best way to ensure a great future for all humanity is to educate every child.  We also need to address the world's greatest killer.  It is not terrorism or cancer but pollution. Every fifteen seconds a child dies from a disease caused by unsanitary drinking water.  Our club must identify projects that address both needs.

I believe the essence of strong leadership is not doing the work of ten people but getting ten people to do the work.  That is the kind of leader I want to be. The only way we can have a successful Rotary year is for each club member to do his or her part. To that end, I would like to see every club member serve on at least one committee and every club member support the Rotary Foundation with a donation of at least $25 or more.  It is the least we can do to put service above self.

Rotary is now one hundred years old, but I believe we are a young organization whose best days lie in the future.  Working together, we can make that better future a reality.

Fred Jordan, 2005-2006 President the Rotary Club of Brevard.