Rotary Means Business (RMB) is a Rotary sanctioned program designed to help connect Rotarian businesses. This year the RMB board members met at the 2018 International Rotary Convention in Toronto. Over 50,000 individuals participated in the convention where Justin Trudeau the Prime Minister of Canada was the featured speaker.

From a business perspective two things were quite interesting to me. First the huge number of participants in the program. As a global conference people came from all over the world with a diversity of interests around mutual interests and community service. Interest groups included wine tasting, stamp collecting, quilting, radios, and doctors. Service groups included community programs for clean water, energy, medical services, polio eradication, vaccination programs, shelter boxes, and emergency services. Second, in addition to the interest and service group, this conference had a very large number of vendors with products and services for sale ranging from jewelry, clothing, camping, business services, travel agencies, and much more.

The RMB service fellowship is designed to make it easier for the 1.2 million Rotarians to connect to businesses in the local community and around the world. Rotary originally started as a way for business people to connect to one another in a trusted network. Through the years that objective was replaced with service to the community. Current strategy supports both objectives, service to community and connecting businesses. Check out the website http://www.rotarymeansbusiness.org for additional information.