James Smithson, an English scientist born out of wedlock to aristocrats, wrote a will in 1826 leaving his fortune to the United States to found in Washington an institution bearing his name and dedicated to the “increase and diffusion of knowledge” among all humankind. He’d never visited the U.S., but his fortune, huge for the time, led to years of Congressional wrangling over to how to enact his bequest. The Smithsonian was finally established in 1846 and in ensuring years led American and worldwide research initiatives, assembled large and significant collections and built national museums. Today, the Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum, research and educational complex. Its collections number over 160 million scientific specimen, historical artifacts and artworks. It’s museums annually attract more than 25 million physical visits and hundreds of millions more through traveling exhibitions and online. Its scientific work includes panda reproduction, tracking viral diseases, understanding climate change, and running telescopes and space satellite missions for NASA.  Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador at Large who has worked at the institution for some five decades examines the Smithsonian’s history, accomplishments, and controversies as well as current work and initiatives.

Last week, John Hewko, the CEO of Rotary International spoke at a gathering of Rotary leaders from across the western U.S. and Canada. Among his many messages he called out the crisis of declining membership in North America. John advanced two strategies for reversing Rotary’s membership decline: 

#1 – start new clubs, and 

#2 – encourage existing clubs to modernize/innovate in order to be relevant, affordable and attractive to a more diverse membership. 

Hewko acknowledged change is hard but necessary for virtually every traditional Rotary club in the U.S. His remarks validated the bold Future Vision our club board has embraced. If we stay the course and implement the integrated and needed changes in our Future Vision, the Rotary Club of Seattle will be well positioned to grow and thrive for another 115 years. A link to Hewko’s keynote speech will be posted here as soon as its available.

 

 

Congrats to David Frum as he celebrates his recent retirement from DLR Group! When not our VP of Programs, David has spent 40+ years shaping the healthcare architecture landscape nationally with human-forward design. If his retirement party attendance was any indication, he will be missed!

Come celebrate with the club we helped launch as they mark their three year anniversary! The evening will feature keynote Rotary speakers involved in direct service to trafficking survivors. More event information is available in the club calendar website listing; to register to attend, please CLICK HERE.