Our Club has had a number of women who have served as President of whom Sue Voss is the latest.
Rotary started inducting women as members 33 years ago in 1987.
Since that time thousands of women have become Rotarians around the World.
In our Club at Mt Eliza we have a large number of experienced, active woman members who make a significant contribution.
Rotarian Trish Stamp was the first female member of our Club on 18 September 1998.
A range of active female members have taken on responsibility for key positions this year including George-Ann Sullivan doing Rosters and Kay McCauley working with Judy Coultas to organise our weekly guest speakers.
We have Pauline McFarlane (Secretary), Linda Morris (Community) and Carolyn Such (Fund-raising) as members of our Board of Directors.
There are now four women directors of Rotary International: Johrita Solari (California USA), Virpi Honkala (Finland), Susan C Howard (Texas, USA) Aikaterini Kotsali-Papadimitriou (Greece).
A question that is often asked is: When will there be a female President of Rotary International?
Hopefully this will occur in the not too distant future when one of the many experienced woman members who have served on the RI Board will put their name forward.
Of course, as Jennifer Jones, who served as RI Vice President in 2016/17 has said, "we need to find qualified people regardless of gender and there are any number of qualified women out there! ... We just have to find the right people who are worthy of our organisation."
As a male Rotarian and Editor, I look forward to the day when we have a woman as President of Rotary International.