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Sakuji Tanaka,
a member of the Rotary Club of Yashio, Saitama, Japan,
is the selection of the Nominating Committee for President of Rotary
International in 2012-13.
Tanaka will become the president-nominee on 1 October if there are no
challenging candidates.
Tanaka said he would like to see Rotary "continue its vital work as the force to
improve our communities."
To do this work, Rotary needs active, involved clubs, he added. "We are
fortunate to have our revised RI Strategic Plan to help build strong clubs that
are vibrant, action-oriented, and relevant in the changing world."
For 32 years, Tanaka was president of Tanaka Company Ltd., a wholesale firm that
went public in 1995 and later merged with other leading wholesalers in Japan.
Currently, he serves as vice president of the Yashio City Chamber of Commerce
and adviser to Arata Co. Ltd., an animal feed and pet food wholesaler. He also
chaired the National Household Papers Distribution Association of Japan for
eight years. Tanaka studied business at Nihon Management Daigakuin and Tokyo
Management Daigakuin.
A past trustee of The Rotary Foundation, Tanaka chaired the 2009 Birmingham
Convention Committee. His other service to Rotary includes RI director, regional
Rotary Foundation coordinator, district governor, and member of the Polio
Eradication Advocacy Task Force, the Permanent Fund Committee for Japan, and the
Future Vision Committee.
Tanaka established an endowed Rotary Peace Fellowship, and he and his wife,
Kyoko, are Paul Harris Fellows, Benefactors of the Permanent Fund, and Major
Donors.
He is a recipient of RI’s Service Above Self Award and The Rotary Foundation’s
Distinguished Service Award.
Tanaka said that eradicating polio will "fulfill the promise we made to children
in the world" and that "there is no doubt in my mind that the day of this
success will be realized in the near future."
Tanaka and Kyoko have three children and five grandchildren.
The 2010 nominating committee members were John F. Germ, USA (chair); Monty J.
Audenart, Canada; Keith Barnard-Jones, England; Peter Bundgaard, Denmark; Frank
C. Collins Jr., USA; Rudolf Hörndler, Germany; Jackson San-Lien Hsieh, Taiwan;
Umberto Laffi, Italy; Ashok M. Mahajan, India; Gerald A. Meigs, USA; Paul A.
Netzel, USA; Samuel A. Okudzeto, Ghana; Kazuhiko Ozawa, Japan; Noraseth
Pathmanand, Thailand; Themistocles A.C. Pinho, Brazil; Barry Rassin, Bahamas;
and Barry E. Thompson, Australia
ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
RI President-nominee’s Acceptance Remarks
Sakuji Tanaka, 2012-13 RI President-nominee
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
25 May 2011
It is my honor to accept the nomination to serve as president of Rotary
International in the 2012-13 Rotary year.
Since I joined Rotary, I have embraced every new challenge of Rotary service. To
me, challenge is a very important word. It inspires us. It also helps us to be
and to do our best. It allows us to bring out our fullest potential.
As your president in 2012-13, I would like to suggest that we shift our focus
from challenge to potential. Let me share the reason why I am making this subtle
but important shift of focus.
Now is the first time in 25 years that we are within reach of the finish line of
Rotary’s top priority: polio eradication. Success in polio eradication will
offer Rotary International enormous potential to use our strengths. These are:
1. Our network of 34,000 Rotary clubs in more than 200 countries and regions
2. Our global partnership model
3. Our fundraising ability
4. Our public advocacy model, our stewardship model
5. Our organizational discipline to keep a high degree of focus on the goal
Combining our strengths enhances our ability to do good in the world. It is our
responsibility, as individuals and as an organization, to ensure that our great
potential is achieved. By doing so, we ensure that Rotary International and its
Foundation will be more effective in providing service activities to our
communities, and to the global community, in our second century of service.
One of the most important factors of our global success, as I mentioned earlier,
is our network of 34,000 Rotary clubs in communities around the world. Because
of our achievements in global polio eradication, Rotary has emerged onto the
world stage as a major nongovernmental organization. What we must never forget
is that it is through the strength of our clubs in every community that we have
this important global impact. The strength and viability of our local clubs is
the key factor that will determine the strength of Rotary in the international
community.
It is our shared responsibility to make Rotary clubs stronger, and to focus more
sharply on our humanitarian service activities. If we do so, we will be better
recognized in our local communities and in the international community.
In order to keep our organization viable, we need quality members. For this, we
must make sure that every club meeting is productive and meaningful to its
members.
Every Rotary activity should be worthwhile and fulfilling to all members. One of
the best ways to improve our clubs is to listen carefully to what club members
are saying, and to take action to address their concerns to make the club
better.
We need younger members, and we must share the work of club leadership with
them. If we wish to have capable leaders tomorrow, we must recruit and train
them today.
This is an action plan. This is not another president talking about the need for
younger members. We need to stop talking about this. Instead, why don’t we just
do it!
And, of course, the greatest challenge that faces Rotary now is to complete our
top priority of polio eradication. It is the single most important task, the
single greatest responsibility we now have. Our decades of hard work, the
confidence of our partners, and our reputation all depend on what we do in the
months ahead. We must work harder than ever, and have no doubt that we will
reach our goal. We will eradicate polio!
People join Rotary for many reasons. But, I am sure all of us here stay in
Rotary because it makes us happy and makes our lives richer.
No one can exist alone. We are all connected in some way with others, and in
helping one another. When disaster struck my country, Japan, in March, people
around the world, particularly Rotarians, offered help to rebuild the
communities lost. Only with the knowledge that we are not alone can we work
together through the long healing process after such tragedy. I would like to
use this opportunity to thank all of you for your help.
To me, Service Above Self is a way of life. It means always looking for ways to
help. It means finding satisfaction in being useful to other people.
Many people have tried to find out what happiness is. What makes a person truly
happy? Whenever this question is studied, the answers are the same. The people
who are most happy are never the people with the most money. The people who are
most happy are the people who are rich in a different way. They have good
friends. They enjoy their work. They are grateful for what they have. And they
help other people.
These are the things that we find through Rotary. Rotary connects us with our
friends, makes us stronger in our work, and gives us a chance to help others.
Rotary brings us together in Service Above Self, and shows us what true
happiness is.
I look forward to serving you in the years ahead — to reaching for new
challenges, to more fully achieving our potential, to sharing new joys, and to
discovering what, we together, are able to achieve.
Thank you, my dear friends.
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