This avenue of service is the focal point of good business ethics.  Our club presents a wonderful placque that new members can display in their place of work for all visitors while serving as a daily reminder about the high standards of Rotary.

 

Our speaker chairman is in charge of the ongoing vocational education of our membership.  We have had speakers from both our own member ranks plus many outside guests that highlight vocations in business, education, government, manufacturing and medicine.  Some of these programs have been held at the actual location of the business, school, or office of the featured speaker.  Ours is definitely an "education-orientated" committee.

 

We also have a quiet "mentoring program" in which volunteers are asked to coach one or more students.  Some of our mentors also go on to give speeches at the various student schools.

 

If you are interested in joining this committee, be sure to contact the chairman or the club president and welcome aboard! 

 

 

 

Rotary's emphasis on vocational service has its roots in the founding of the organization in 1905. And the use of the classification principle — the guideline by which nearly all Rotary membership is determined — assures that each club has among its members a cross-section of a community's business and professional population.

The second part of the Object of Rotary calls for Rotarians to apply high ethical standards in their businesses and professions, recognize the worthiness of all useful occupations, and to consider their own occupations as opportunities to serve society.

In 1943, Rotarians were provided with a tool to help them achieve their vocational service goals when the RI Board of Directors voted to make The 4-Way Test an official component of the vocational service ideal. The test gave Rotarians a way to assess whether their personal and business dealings were being conducted with truth, fairness, goodwill, and decency.

For the first 80-plus years of Rotary's history, the second Avenue of Service — vocational service — was an area that focused on personal contributions that Rotarians could make within their own workplaces. Increasingly, however, clubs began to expand the definition of vocational service by organizing events such as career seminars and vocational training workshops.

So, in 1987, the RI Vocational Service Committee was called together — for the first time in 40 years — to redefine the second Avenue of Service. The committee created, and the RI Board adopted, new committee structures and determined that vocational service was now the responsibility of individual Rotarians and clubs within the workplace and the community.

In 1989, the Council on Legislation adopted the Declaration of Rotarians in Business and Professions.  This declaration spelled out the high ethical standards referred to in the Object of Rotary, and it gave Rotarians another tool for gauging their own professional ethics as well as the ethical standards they hoped to encourage through vocational service projects.

Vocational service evolved further in the 1990s with two new opportunities for Rotarians to share their professional skills. In 1992, the Rotary Volunteers program was brought under the umbrella of vocational service. And in 1993, the International Vocational Contact Groups program was merged with World Fellowship Activities to form a new program called  Rotary Fellowships.