Round Table SSI (RT SSI) was founded at the RTI IROs meeting in Athens 2005.
It started as a response to the reigning RTI President’s demand that National IROs would be required to sell the newly issued Side by Side pins. First with more than a few laughs, opposition manifested itself and the personal sheep pin of RTBI IRO Huw Jones from Wales was inspiration to form Round Table Sheep Shaggers International. National IROs would become instant members and got nicknames like Friendsheep, Relationsheep or Financial Sheep.
A logo was quickly chosen; Rondel with Rubber Wellies. The plan was to sell three pins (one of the same size as the Side by Side and the other two in more or less the size of an association pin) for the same price as one Side by Side pin to support an international service project — the Round Table School of Hope was chosen. There were 2 different sets of 3 pins — the first with green, the second with blue. Whereas the first featured the wellies, the second displayed a tennis racket without strings as a special design. I leave it to your imagination what to do with Wellies and the stringless tennis racket in connection to sheep, well, the guys from RTBI did.
Originally, the black pins and the cuff links were produced to induce the IROs to sell 10 or more pin sets and were only given out to members. As far as I remember, the black pins with the sheep were the first production to go with the green set, the stringless tennis racket with the blue.
More than €5,000 was raised in a truly international collaboration through the pin sales for the RTSoH and RT SSI is still present on the boards at the buildings, mentioning the donors.
RT SSI was officially founded at the RTI & WOCO Meeting 2006 in Polokwane, South Africa. The present IROs were all wearing white wellies, except for the Black Sheep, one Simon Cusens, who as RTI President, did the honours. RT SSI found its way into the RTI International Directory printed by RT Malta at the time.
With the tenure of the founding National IROs coming to an end, RT SSI also faded.
The pins and thoughts remain, and the support we gave to others — adopt, adapt, improve.
A temporary logo used for this article until photos of the pins were acquired:
