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People & parties

Rotary leader names issues, goals for groups

By JENNIFER STEWART
Published August 28, 2005

WESLEY CHAPEL - He's not someone most folks are likely to meet, much less run into at the Rotary Concourse Pavilion off State Road 52.

But the pavilion was among a handful of local sites the current president of Rotary International visited before speaking at the posh Saddlebrook Resort for a reception and dinner Thursday.

Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar, from Sweden, is serving a one-year post with the global service organization, which has 529 districts. This district, which encompasses Pasco, Pinellas, Hernando and Citrus counties, has 49 clubs and 2,200 members.

And nearly 300 of them packed a Saddlebrook ballroom for the event, where the leader received near-celebrity treatment. Stenhammar even began his after-dinner talk by jokingly noting that his "very unscientific study reveals that a Rotarian wants two things from the president: one, to shake his hand, and two, to take his picture, regardless of who he is."

The 70-year-old retired businessman went on, though, to discuss serious issues Rotary clubs face in different parts of the world.

Rotarians in the Baltic republic of Estonia, for instance, expressed concerns about their club to Stenhammar when he visited there recently. They said their charter date on record is 1991, but they were really chartered in 1930. Twenty-six of its 28 members were killed during World War II.

Stenhammar vowed to change the rules, if necessary, so the Estonia club and others in similar positions can reclaim their original charter dates.

He also discussed China and its government's unwillingness to allow Rotary groups there to spread. There are two provisional clubs in the country. Each year, the Rotary president chooses a theme for the organization, and Stenhammar picked the organization's 1911 motto "Service Above Self."

New Port Richey Rotarian Nanci Larson was among those at Saddlebrook who also heard Stenhammar speak at Rotary's Centennial Celebration in Chicago in June. "I think he's amazing," Larson said. "It's going to be an exciting year."

It will also be a historic year, as Rotary seeks to redefine itself.

Stenhammar might have chosen a theme from the past, but he's certainly working to move the group forward. Under his leadership, for instance, women have been named to Rotary's top posts for the first time.

Even as Rotary began working in 1985 to eradicate polio throughout the world, women weren't allowed to become members of the group until 1989.

Even now, women account for only 15 percent of Rotarians, "so we have a long way to go," Stenhammar said during an interview.

He noted, though, that women will be chosen because of talent, not gender. "They are leaders, and we are a leadership organization," he said.

This area's district governor, David West, described Rotary's current situation as a battle between tradition and progress.

Changes toward modernization include the formation of cyber clubs, and the Web site for this district, www.rotaryecluboftampabay.org is one of Rotary's 20 pilot projects to assess the online forum.

"We have to change to remain relevant," West said, "but we have to hold on to what has made us great."

[Last modified August 28, 2005, 01:14:15]