Outgoing Rotary International President, Carlo Ravizza has made an appeal a couple of times to all concerned Districts, which is to create more active clubs. In effect, he meant to strengthen the grassroots - the general membership. Increasing the number and the quality of Rotarians will make Rotary more effective in the attainment of its goals and objectives.

Membership is clearly the life-blood of a club. Larger clubs have a greater blend of qualified Rotarians from which to select the president, perhaps the governor, and other district leaders. These clubs will also have a better ability to dispense service-projects that will create better impression on the community, and thus, give rise to increased awareness of the Rotary. This will eventually attract further service-oriented leaders. Larger hierarchy of Rotarians will also mean greater potential for raising funds to support local and international projects. Throughout the 1990s Rotary International experienced a decline in membership in existing clubs. The Rotary International Board established strategic goals calling for each district to comprise at least 75 clubs and 2,700 members. Of late more than 100 districts do not even apparently meet the current target of 50 clubs and 1,800 members.

However, membership or attendance records will not guarantee a more effective club, in as much as the number of attendees per meeting will not warrant a successful project discussed. Rotary has been known and valued for because of its lofty level of service in the community. A club's worth depends on the number of impact programs it has created to improve the quality of life in the vicinity.  With "right" members we can achieve more meaningful service goals. "Right," means Rotarians with strong moral character, high ethical standards, dedication to service and tolerant attitude, to name a few. Bringing in new members is not enough, we must take in the befitting constituents and work much harder at retaining them.

As a club we need to resolve to attain a "quantity in quality" membership. Unfortunately RCSFU does not have sufficient data to statistically correlate our fruition as a club to our general membership, which by far has not encountered a great decline. We can learn from this year's RI theme of: Consistency, Credibility and Continuity. If only we are consistent with the organizational rules required of all Rotary clubs in selecting our members we can have distinctive ones. If all Rotarians will practice the high ethical mores espoused by Rotary; live and work in accordance with its ideals in enhancing the club's credibility, we will ultimately be a stronger club and produce more commendable Rotarians. If only our club can continue good projects and fellowship earlier proposed, or standard which will increase covenant among the members - we will be able to aggrandize the club's image in our locale. As the credibility grows, qualified men will want to become Rotarians. For the coming Rotary Year, let's remember that we cannot "create awareness", or "take actions" if we don't have a good