DG George's message for August
Month Theme: Membership and Extension
In July, I completed 21 official visits. Past District Governors have told me that the fun in being the DG is to see the individual clubs and what they do. They were right. I am working hard at building an inventory of individual club service projects and fund raising efforts. I am also collecting the great stories of 7750. I sincerely thank the clubs that I have visited for sharing their club culture with me.
I have written up some of my experiences in a blog. This includes a small portion of the great stories that I have heard and the things that I have seen. Please take a look at the blog.
After 18 club presentations, I decided to try a power point presentation to emphasize the major Elements of Rotary’s Strategic Plan. I am the probably the first DG to use this method. Maybe the last. It is still a work in progress and some clubs just don’t have the facility to accommodate power point. Nevertheless pictures can tell the story better than I can.
August is Membership and Extension month. President Kenny’s Goals are a net one new member for each club, retention of 80% of existing members and to form two new clubs in each District. Co-Chairs Bruce Baker and Myles Golden have been developing a plan for the year. My concept was to have each Assistant Governor appoint a membership chair, or they could attend the seminar themselves. We are planning to conduct some intensive training for the area reps, and then have them work with the clubs.
The message of membership to all clubs is look at your community and then at your club. For example, less than 20% of Rotarians in the District are women. (Pam Weaver says it is 19.37%, but who’s counting. I think the percentage of women in communities is substantially higher than that. Women have brought new vitality and creativity to clubs. We need to look at new strategies for recruiting women. We also need some specific strategies for recruiting community leaders and minorities. These will all be issues that we discuss at our August 29th meeting in Greenville.
One of the many surprises of my visits is the number and quality of Interact Clubs in the District. Virtually every club that I visited has some connection to an Interact Club at a local High School. The level of interaction varies. Some clubs participate in the Interact Service Projects and ask Interact members to participate in club projects. Some clubs limit college scholarships to Interact members. Some Interact clubs limit members to those in the National Honor Society. Greater Anderson is coordinating a competition between Westside and Hanna to provide meals like we did at District Conference. Clemson asks the Interact officers to come and host a meeting. It is obvious that Interact (and Rotoract) will provide a pipeline of members in the future.
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