Rotary Zones 33-34 - Vox Populi - The voice of the people; in this case our Rotarians

Cliff Dochterman has a chapter in his book, As I was Saying, where he talks about Rotarians and their obsession with ribbons. One of the many highlights is when Cliff explains that a person with seven ribbons can talk to God; and if they have eight ribbons God will answer. Have more than eight ribbons and Frank Devlyn will talk to you because, let's face it, Frank talks to everyone.

Now it seems a similar mystique and fascination exists with Rotary related name badges, especially outside of the club environment. Discounting the occasional sighting of an Assistant Governor at a regular club meeting (and presuming that he/she is in actuality wearing their name badge), probably the first encounter when a rank and file Rotarian runs across an alien name badger is at the District Assembly. At this event there are all sorts of esoteric titles being bandied around, you are only limited to your imagination as to the scope of the entitlements.

There are Committee Chairs galore; most likely for everything you can find in the Sears/Roebuck catalogue there is a Committee Chair for it somewhere in the world. And, of course, all of these Committee Chairs have a name badge of some sort. Now we say "of some sort" because some of the name badges not only are not from the current Rotary year but are not necessarily from the current decade. There is the philosophy of "you are what you used to be". So do not be surprised when you meet the Chair of Outhouse Restoration.

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