Posted on Apr 03, 2020
PERTH ROTARY - PRESIDENTS UPDATE - 03rd April 2020
 
Rotarians and friends of Perth Rotary,

The pandemic and the recent restrictions which keep most of us in limited action and activity have given the opportunity to our club to open a “Window to the World”!

When we decided to suspend our Rotary meetings in order to protect the welfare of our members, I was already convinced that the current Rotary year was one of the most challenging ones. The need to change our meeting venue after more than 35 years, followed the bushfires and now …the pandemic, I’m sure they would easily make the perfect story for a thriller movie!

However, being an optimist by nature, I realised that the above unexpected challenges have boosted our Club forward.

The change of venue gave us the opportunity to move away from the comfort zone and to re-establish ourselves as the premium Club in the city by moving in the big and brand new Westin Perth 5 star hotel.  Our members, after they became more familiar with our new venue, appreciated the substantial contribution of this new venue to the profile of our club and its attraction to everyone.

The bushfires that put our country in deep sorrow, gave Rotary the opportunity to establish so many Bushfire Relief funds around the country and us, the Perth Rotary to lead by example, inviting the DFES Commissioner to present us the facts of that tragedy in a Bushfire Relief fundraising meeting.   

The most recent challenge though, that has put the world in a big quarantine, the pandemic, is the opportunity that opens for our Club a “Window to the World”. After suspending our meetings, we started the Zoom In series through the Zoom teleconference platform. Our Club pioneered the use of Zoom in some of its Board meetings at the beginning of the current Rotary year but now the opportunity was much bigger!

We started our first Zoom In last Wednesday with Dr. Nick Kontorinis who presented the real dimensions of the Coronavirus threat and the current situation in our country which is at the “starting phase” of the virus expansion cycle (and everything shows that it won’t go significantly further). Last Wednesday Professor Canzonieri, live from Italy, presented the next phase of the pandemic cycle: “the peak point” as this translates in the thousands of victims in beautiful Italy. Next Wednesday, in live connection with China, we will meet some Rotarians from various Clubs of Rotary China and they will discuss “the day after the virus”: how life changes in a country when things find their way back to normal after such a tragedy.

If you haven’t realised it yet, after we stopped meeting within the perimeter of a hotel ballroom and the limits of our City, our new meeting spot now is the whole world with no limits or restrictions. We can invite personalities from around the globe to speak live while you, our members and friends can be watching from the comfort of your home. Of course this cannot substitute the good Rotary Meeting, the fellowship, the networking and the “magic” of having lunch together.

Everything is still new but we must be very brave and quick to take action and to grab the opportunity when other people see only dramas and panic.  I strongly believe that this pandemic is the start of a new world where technological solutions that were available but hardly used, now have taken over for good. Nothing will be the same in our world when this challenge will be over. Businesses will have found new ways to be efficient by having their employees working from home and this will shift the employment patterns from where they used to be for ages. People will look after their health more, while they will also realise the power of the family in times where family as an institution has been severely underrated in the western world.  Automation and technology will take over entirely and everywhere, resulting to the creation of economies of scale and to making more personal time available.

I would say that this “horrible” at the moment 2020 might be seen many years later as the year that changed the world and definitely the year that changed our Club. I’m proud to be on the helm of our Club in this year of transition and I’d like to ask you to stay well, safe and to welcome the new world with the new Perth Rotary!

Warm regards

Vangelis Katsaitis
Perth Rotary President 2019-2020