Random Conversations and Musings

Happy New Year, my RCM brothers! Let us all welcome 2025 with a renewed hope that things will and can be better. Yes, let us all continue to hope and dream; let us ever nurture the fortitude to forge ahead, and maintain the audacity to act based on those hopes and dreams.

To dream, as they say, is like reaching for the stars. We may not always actually reach them, but the star continues to serve as a constant guide and a sublime inspiration.

Let the unfolding of a new year strengthen our resolve to pursue the good, eschew and fight the bad, and be an overall kind and self-effacing individual in this ever-evolving world of ours.

I hope we will all continue to render service above self, with all our actions genuinely geared towards realizing substantive and life-changing projects for the benefit of others.

While we welcome the new calendar year, Rotarians all over the world also mark the second half of this Magical Rotary Year. Yes, we are halfway through our magical year.

Truly, the past six months have been eventful, with RCM’s implementation of various community projects. Our memorable December activities (such as the gift-giving to indigent children of Mithing Pangarap at Smokey Mountain in Balut, Tondo; and the special program and gift distribution to the children, teens and elderly at Hospicio de San Jose), as well as the other successfully rolled out projects in the first half of the Rotary year must serve as an impetus and inspiration for us, Manila Rotarians, to continue serving our chosen communities and beneficiaries.

RCMFI

As an unincorporated entity, it made perfect sense for RCM, and indeed was a wise decision by the leaders at that time, to formally organize and set up a foundation. Hence, in 1978, RC Manila Foundation, Inc. or RCMFI was officially incorporated and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Since its foundation, RCMFI has served as the funding arm of RCM, supporting its programs and enabling benefactors and donors to enjoy the benefits of donating funds and giving monetary support to a duly registered and organized foundation. RCMFI has also initiated fund-raising activities such as the RCM Cup, an annual golf tournament, which has raised the needed funds to support RCM’s various projects and initiatives.

The founders and incorporators of RCMFI have wisely determined that the roadmap, policies, and direction of both the foundation and RCM must always be in sync. After all, RCMFI was founded not to independently pursue its own plans, but to always act pursuant to or consistent with the direction and objectives of the Club itself.

It is thus unsurprising that the RCMFI By-Laws (Article IV, Section 2) provides that the members of the RCM Board are automatically nominated for election as members of the RCMFI Board of Trustees. The 15-man RCMFI Board is thus expected to have the 8 Directors of RCM among them.

Manila Rotarians must thus note this wisdom embedded in the RCMFI By-Laws, as it clearly lays down the clear and intended relationship between RCM and RCMFI.