Building fellowship among Members is a key part of being a Rotarian, but this has been a challenge when the country is in lockdown and many Members are finding things stressful. Telling a little lie might help...
Rotary's four-way test is a guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships (Is it the TRUTH? Is it FAIR to all concerned? Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS? Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?), so you'd probably be surprised to hear that our Members abandoned the first of these during our recent meeting. But worry not, it was only a temporary challenge and all in aid of having a bit of fun among ourselves and finding out more about each other.
Ahead of the meeting we were asked by our Speakers Secretary, Rotarian Dee Mepstead, to plan a short statement about ourselves. This was to be true or false, serious or funny, the choice was ours. During the Zoom meeting we then went into a number of small breakout rooms where we shared our statement with others in the room; their task was to determine if we were telling a lie or the truth, much like the popular TV show "Would I Lie to You?"
There were plenty of laughs and raised eyebrows as each person made their statement and answered the questions. Statements ranged from VIP/celebrity encounters ("I met and dined with renowned cricketer Garfield Sobers", or "I met Margaret Thatcher while at work") to claims of sporting prowess ("Generally, Im not good at sport...but I do have a black belt in judo", or "There was a time a bowling ball smashed into two pieces and we had to toss a coin to decide the outcome as it wasn't in the rule book"). Some claims were quite bizarre (I helped dress a fish for a wedding) or numerically astounding ("I have lived in 29 homes..."). There was plenty of head scratching, and a mix of correct and incorrect outcomes. But one outcome, for sure, is that we enjoyed ourselves and for a short while totally forgot about the ongoing pandemic.
Picture: Pinocchio, a character in a 1883 Italian children's novel, has a nose that was said to grow when he lied! Picture credit: jacqueline macou from Pixabay
