Rotarians are aiming to be young at heart
Big-hearted community group wants younger members
03.06.2017 A well-known community organisation is to launch a drive to recruit younger members.
Paisley Rotary Club works to help people though its people giving up their time and giving a helping hand.
It has also donated money, raised through various activities, to organisations such as Paisley’s PACE theatre group, Ferguslie Caring Group, and Paisley Street pastors.
Between 2010 and 2016, the club’s fundraising total reached almost £60,000, with individual donations from it ranging from under £450 to more than £9,500.
Paisley Rotary Club member John McLaren, 80, who is a former Paisley police divisional commander and former Paisley town centre manager, said: “It’s a fair sum of money.
“But in a way that is not what we are about, really.
“Our motto is Service Above Self, and it’s about giving hours and working with other organisations,
“Quite a number of Rotary members get involved with other organisations, and what we do is give time.”
Paisley Rotary Club currently has 25 members, and it wants to recruit new ones, especially those who are younger than the current age group, which is made up of many retired people.
Members traditionally come from the professions.
“They can be plumbers, doctors, ministers – anyone who can give time,” Mr McLaren said.
Rotary describes its aims as encouraging and fostering the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster the development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service.
It also encourages high ethical standards in business and the professions, the recognition of “the worthiness of all useful occupations and the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society”, and the application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’s personal, business and community life.
The recruitment event for Paisley Rotary will be announced later this year.