Speaker John Washington

John Washington a Rotarian from the Conshocken Club stopped by with an important message.  A little about John: He was in law enforcement for 21 years as a Lt. supervising 20 other Bicycle police officers on the University of Penn campus.  Their police force was 125 strong for a campus in Philadelphia and it also as its own SWAT team.  John was shot twice in the line of duty both time he had his vest on.  He lives with a back that has been broken three times and he has three rods  keeping him upright.  I am going to try an paint a picture of John as I met him on Thursday morning.  A gentleman is putting his presentation together but he has on Plaid Bermuda shorts, an orange shirt with a United States Customs Fire Arms specialist shirt.  He is balding about 5'10" tall with a pair of sun glasses hanging on the back of his head. (Dale took advantage of his looking out of the back of his head) John is a very interesting guest.  He first found out about Rotary through a program we had called GSA and he traveled to a third world country for a 6-8 weeks experience that was cut short because of the economy in the country and the fact that every Rotary club had disbanded and they had no where to live.  But John being an avid firefighter for over 40 years promised to come back and donate necessary items to the fire department in the town he was visiting. 

        To make a really long story short John went back 5 years later and donated $2500 worth of fire equipment to the town.   Coming back to the states after his first return trip, he met up with a Rotary member and the member asked why he did not ask Rotary for a matching grant to make his monies go farther.  John said because even though he was a GSA member he never was asked to become a Rotarian.  He was then asked and now has been a Rotarian for over 13 years and has made the town he visits every few years very happy going back three times to give them the much needed fire equipment they desperately needed.  He has helped one fine young women become the only Female Paul Harris recipient in this country by negotiating the fire equipment (holding it hostage until they made her a Paul Harris). 

       John's story is called P.R.I.D.E.  and is an acronym to help other Rotarians remember that no one is going to toot our horn better the we will.  Ask other like minded people if they would like to join Rotary.  Make sure when you have a project everyone knows about it and we invite the media and utilize Social Media.  Know when other clubs meet so if you meet someone and they cannot make an Emmaus Rotary meeting but are more comfortable with Allentown West tell them the time and place where they meet so we can build Rotary everywhere not only in our club.  He asked JP a question about membership and how we guide new members through the process.  JP handled it extremely well. 

      To sum it up John had presentation that was right on target for all Rotarians.  He did think we had some work to do in the area of diversity, we have gender diversity but we lack in color and culture diversity.   Keep Rotary in the fore front of all you do, toot or own horn and keep the humanitarian projects going. 

Below is a picture of John's club receiving the Community service of the year award for Plymouth Whitemarsh/Conschocken Rotary Club