What is Rotary?

Rotary members are volunteers who work at the local, regional and international level to fight poverty and hunger, improve health standards, provide education and promote peace and diplomacy.

The Rotary Club of St. Thomas was chartered in 1950. We celebrated our 60th anniversary in May 2010. The club is actively involved in the St. Thomas community as well as internationally.

Rotary International 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 their own communities and around the world. In more than 200 countries worldwide, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 30,000 Rotary clubs.

The Object of Rotary

First formulated in 1910 and adapted through the years as Rotary’s mission expanded, the Object of Rotary provides a succinct definition of the organization’s purpose as well as the club member’s responsibilities.

The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

FIRST The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;

SECOND High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society;

THIRD The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’s personal, business, and community life;

FOURTH The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

The Four-Way Test

From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were concerned with promoting high ethical standards in their professional lives.

One of the world’s most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics is The 4-Way Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor (who later served as RI president) when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy. This 24-word code of ethics for employees to follow in their business and professional lives became the guide for sales, production, advertising, and all relations with dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this simple philosophy.

Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The 4-Way Test has been translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of ways. It asks the following four questions:

Of the things we think, say or do:

Is it the TRUTH?

Is it FAIR to all concerned?

Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?