What is Rotary?

Rotary is an organization of business and professional men and women united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

The Rotary Club of Mitchell Field is part of Rotary District 6270 comprised of Rotary clubs in communities throughout eastern Wisconsin and is governed by Rotary International.  Rotarians serve their local, district and international communities.  Founded in 1905 by Paul Harris in Chicago, IL, as a professional and social group with meetings rotating through people's homes, Rotary's membership and mission have expanded with clubs on six continents serving communities in need.  Today, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 32,000 clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas.

The Purpose of Rotary

• The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
• High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
• The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;
• The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

Rotary's Four-Way Test

From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were concerned with promoting high ethical standards in their professional lives. One of the world's most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics is The Four-Way Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor (who later served as RI president) when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy. That company survived by infusing all aspects of the company with this simple philosophy.  Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The Four-Way Test has been translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of ways. It asks the following four questions:

"Of the things we think, say or do: