Past District Governor Larry Horton and our club's Past President, Dr. Laura Vanderberg, have been working on developing a course they will be teaching in the Spring at our Rotary District's Club Leadership Academy.  The course will deal with the phenomena of Burnout Experienced by Members of Volunteer Organizations.  We were given an introductory preview last Wednesday at our meeting of what their research has discovered.  While it is usually assumed that Burnout mainly applies to employees and managers in the workplace, the responses they have received to their survey indicate that this can also be a problem in volunteer organizations, such as Rotary.  They believe it may be one of the primary reasons members resign from clubs and leave Rotary.

 

Consequently, the tag team duo feel it is important that Rotary Club Members understand the contributing factors to experiencing Burnout, and that we recognize the signs of developing burnout, and take steps to avoid it, before we succomb to it.  They emphasized that being under stress is not necessarily a bad or harmful condition.  In fact, they noted, most of us produce the most and do our best work when we are in periods when we are feeling stressed.  The problem of Burnout begins when we recognize that we are beginning to resent what we are doing, and begin to feel cynical about it.    When we identify those signs in our attitude about the service we are performing, it is time to take action and make a change.  There may be someone else who would be better suited to take over this task, and there may be another position where we feel we would better fit, and could more happily serve.                                            

 

 

 

As the organiation that made the first commitment to eradicate polio from the world, we need Rotary members and clubs to use their collective voice to advocate, raise awareness and to fundraise on October 24 for World Polio Day.

 

More than just donating funds to eradicate this crippling and deadly disease, Rotarians have been among those whose boots have been on the ground, helping each year with national immunization days around the world.  It has not been easy.  The distribution of vaccines network, extending to the most remote corners of countries, has required delivery at times by trucks, trains, boats, motorcycles, bicycles, even by camels and elephants, as well as by foot.  In the beginning, many thought we were crazy, committing to a task most believed to be impossible.  However, Rotarians have never backed down from a challenge; and we made a commitment to the children of the world that one day they would be able to live in a polio-free world.  From 1,000 new cases of polio per day, when we began in 1985, there are now only two countries remaining where the wild polio virus still exists, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  We are getting close to our goal, but we are not quite there yet.  In 2023 there were 12 cases reported, versus 22 in 2022.

 

This Thursday, Oct. 24, at 4:00 p.m., on World Polio Day, our Prescott Sunup Rotary Club will hold our annual "Pints for Polio" at Mob Burger, as we raise funds to help purchase the needed doses of the polio vaccine to help finish this difficult task, to which we have been committed for so many years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Variant poliovirus type-2 isolates were detected in environmental samples in Gaza, and a 10-month-old child was confirmed to have contracted polio there. A two-round polio vaccination campaign began in Gaza on 1 September. Rotary is committing US$500,000 to bolster the initiative, channeling these funds through a dedicated Polio Outbreak Response Fund. This contribution represents Rotary’s sustained support to the World Health Organization in combating polio globally.