During our orientation workings for the new regional board, two key items stuck firmly in my head, namely membership growth and Foundation giving, which are critical to our survival as a region and globally.
In September, we held our second Membership Summit with the key aim of ‘Grow Rotary’ where we launched the “100-day climb” to recruit 600 new Rotarians across 100 days. This was a great catalyst to start working together in our six clusters, targeting around 100 new members per cluster.
Before we can work together, we must get together!
The ‘Cluster Concept’ is a key part of our new governance model allowing for districts and their officers to work together in groups, providing better support to members and clubs. The clusters offer three clear opportunities:
- For districts to share resources.
- To lift some workload off the district governors.
- To maximise the effectiveness of central resources in delivering an activity, project, initiative, etc.
Having worked on the cluster concept since last year, we are starting to get together in our clusters.
Before we can work together, we must get together! It will take time, but it is important we embrace these changes for the positive future of Rotary.
Many people stepped up to volunteer during the pandemic and still want to become involved; maybe not as we saw Rotary in the past, but these people can be our future and are waiting to be asked.”
As a new regional Board, we have been in operation just over 120 days; about a third of the way through the year and some of our initial work has come to an end by way of agreeing a way forward through four new projects following the initial set-up of the membership (business) growth, member experience and business processes workstreams:
- Conduct independent market research
- Know our customers – Rotary club survey
- Value: create small focus group with the Rotary Support Centre & Board members
- Review & simplify all routes to membership processes
We all remember March 2020 when all our lives changed with the Covid pandemic and various lockdown measures. For many, Zoom developed as our way of staying connected and created opportunities for many organisations, Rotary included.
Many people stepped up to volunteer during the pandemic and still want to become involved; maybe not as we saw Rotary in the past, but these people can be our future and are waiting to be asked.
Remember when we work together our ability to create a difference is immense.
