FUTURE LEADERS SEMINAR 2011

Discussion Group Outcomes

The following ideas, comments and suggestions were outcomes from the discussion groups by topic. Hand writing has been interpreted as well as possible.

Membership Recruitment Diversity and Success

  • Use social network, social occasions to encourage membership
  • Utilize and sell Rotary’s intellectual capital
  • Merging clubs
  • New members nominate a favourite charity and build a project around it
  • Start a new 30’s Rotary club
  • Sign “women welcome”
  • Rotaract relationship
  • One on one introduction
  • Source through Rotary program alumni eg RYE, GSE, RYLA, Rotaract, Interact, MUNA
  • Invite young people in pairs/groups
  • Membership cost options; assistance, discounted, associates
  • Interact clubs in schools
  • Focus on 40-60 yrs
  • Business card – all about Rotary
  • Focus on “keeping members” – making it relevant
  • Bring a friend dinner twice a year
  • Women invite women
  • Networking
  • Every member has a soft copy of an invite letter to hand on to particular members
  • Talent management programme
  • Look to Rotarians’ partners
  • Give out school gift – but then get into news letter
  • Get members to a meeting and make sure it is FUN
  • Personal approach to people we know
  • Guest speakers to members
  • Club must be friendly and busy
  • Testing blood pressure in shopping centre
  • Ask vocation, guest speakers, RYLA, GSE, Rotaract, Apex
  • Target empty nesters
  • Target past GSE, RYE, Science Forum and parents
  • Small business seminar
  • Friends of Rotary – invite to working bees
  • Target guest speakers
  • Different format for meetings eg regular, happy hour meeting, community service, vocational meeting
  • Change meeting times; ie morning one week, next week dinner meeting
  • Link with alumni GSE, exchange families
  • Club attendance – do clubs need to meet each week ?
  • Promoting projects
  • Promote Rotaract
  • RYLA/Rotaract alumni as source of members and focusing on them. Take a positive approach and plan to succeed – perhaps not relevant, although can be useful. Ask people to “meeting” or not ? Rather come to Rotary and have interesting guest speakers. Have diverse meetings eg social and offsite
  • Meetings sometimes not our best showcase – but can be,. Follow-up
  • Projects/causes get people involved eg plumbers on water project. Get people on the project and they may join Rotary.
  • Universities are great places for Rotaract. Rotary is well-known in Australian universities
  • Is Rotary known and what it does ? Not well known but not understood. Perceptions are that we are old male, We need to tell the story. Publicity now has Rotary younger members in photos
  • Emphasise personal development
  • Establish younger new clubs without the protocol and historical habits
  • The dinosaurs have to change. Challenge traditions
  • One night/month casual – finger food and stand around
  • Longer term rolling plan – keen to make membership grow over longer period as opposed to +10 one year and only 1 the following year
  • Change the club first – make it a happy place to be FIRST
  • Sell how good we are – make sure we tell the world
  • Message – giving back and make it fun
  • By invitation with personal contact
  • Aim at retirees
  • Friends of Rotary
  • High profile speakers

Membership Retention

  • Challenge traditions – young people have different set of values
  • Associates – minimum attendance, reduced fees
  • Fellowship; dinners, bring a plate get together, camping weekend
  • Find out what the members want to do at functions or community events
  • Change rules re attendance
  • Find out what member wants
  • Encourage members to do makeups at other clubs, go with them, expand their horizons
  • Look at culture of club
  • Balance traditions and change
  • Explain why we do things – traditions
  • Mentor – ease the new member in
  • Be action people – something to do
  • Challenge cringe worthy traditions
  • Past RYLA, RYPEN, GSE involvement
  • Family friendly functions
  • Rotary info spot to explain various Rotary programs, Paul Harris Felloe
  • Tune up – meeting a place to be; what we do in meetings; why did you join; why are you still a member
  • Reasons; not sharing the load, “fall outs”
  • Loss = silent killer. Rotary “a place to be”
  • Membership transfer – make easier
  • Look at club culture. Is it fun ?
  • Be diverse – make changes slowly
  • Make if fun !! Make it informative !!
  • Attendance vs Service – club structure and relevance and visibility; connection, signature project
  • Have a fun club. Key is your sergeant
  • New member - .. project as club project. Interesting meeting – good speakers. Need to feel wanted.
  • Provisional member until they have dined with all members
  • Avoid cliques
  • Get partners to run meeting on Partners Night
  • Some clubs are fishbowl clubs
  • New members encouraged to go to District Conference etc
  • Ice breaker – find out who is a lawyer, dentist etc
  • Secret greeter
  • Family friendly
  • Good social programme
  • Annual review of members views; ie club role, projects etc
  • Give each member a role/job
  • Review the cost of Rotary
  • Each club member speak for 3 minutes on their vocation
  • Rotary information session at club meetings
  • Good communication with new members. Short directors reports regularly
  • Ask new Rotarians what they would like to gain by being a club member – what are their interests
  • Have a good mentor programme
  • Exit meeting – learn why they left
  • Loss is leadership failure !!! Why
  • Give new member a job but with low expectation
  • Offer complimentary membership for young people eg RYE alumni, Rotaract
  • Know your members; what do they want; leadership skill
  • Relevance of club
  • Breaking up cliques, change seating arrangements
  • Older members reluctant to change – mentoring youth
  • Visit other clubs to see how other clubs operate – scatter meeting twice a year
  • Changing projects/responsibilities in the club
  • Commitment, not just one year
  • Modernizing club – changing traditions (grace, toast etc)
  • Do not worry about the over 60’s, they will die anyway
  • Youth programs may revitalize a club/members
  • What are the members’ needs ?

Membership – Technology and Pilot Programs

  • E-clubs – getting over traditions
  • “Try things” rather than “it will not work”
  • Shift emphasis from attendance to a service commitment
  • Corporate membership – local interpretation
  • Hybrid club that allows e-makeups in a traditional environment
  • There are many benefits of attending e-clubs eg broadening one’s Rotary knowledge, therefore members should be encouraged to visit these e-clubs
  • Using communication to raise a call to action – following action and change
  • Different approaches to the meetings; meals, no meals, times, costs, choices
  • Focus on connections – how do we conceptualise this
  • E-clubs, Skype, facebook, hybrid clubs
  • Satellite clubs
  • Distance – technology may be solution
  • Asian e-clubs eg Singapore – loggin as member or guest – 30 minutes for a makeup. Monthly physical meeting time poor members can achieve hands on projects. Menu driven rostering
  • Some monetary expectations sponsored by traditional ckub
  • Investigate strategies being applied eg Rotaract and apply these
  • Privacy issues, legal issues – risk analysis. Facebook – Gisborne good example. Blogs – need management.
  • Rotary Club blogging - use guidelines for advertising/promotion to update blogs
  • To move forward we must embrace all possible technology forms

District and Club Training Activities

  • Rotary Leadership Institute; clubs identify people to attend as future leaders eg board members, incoming presidents. Regionalised approach
  • Presentation skills across training areas. Inspired training with good content
  • Use social media to publicise training
  • Electronic learning/training especially in large districts
  • Exchange visits between clubs then share information
  • Need to prioritise training – too much on
  • Break out sessions are great for sharing
  • Challenge to get members to attend training
  • Link training to certificate recognized by TAFE
  • RLI good “cross pollination” of ideas
  • More relevant manuals, photos, banners (Australian/NZ)
  • Members need to understand that new information is available
  • Have trainers who are qualified as trainers
  • Diversify methods of delivery at training, PETS, meetings
  • More “roadshows”
  • Have immediate past positions talk to training sessions
  • Need district level planning that is varied, more interesting
  • Speakers going to clubs, areas is effective
  • Attending District Conference encourages members to attend (sponsorship by club)
  • Weekends out
  • Train the trainers eg at Institute
  • Duplication in training needs to be rationalized
  • Standard training programme for Australia and NZ
  • Training needs assessment
  • Help Rotarians to understand value of training and how it can be used for opportunities in District roles
  • Still need (social) interaction (face to face)
  • Awareness of costs and time
  • Make it fun
  • Sell benefit of training to members
  • Training hubs in district
  • Need: dynamic trainers, not just older, experienced members
  • Club Visioning working well but needs further push.
  • Issue re Service Chairman getting information back to project chairs
  • RLI starting to work. Probably too limited as people see it as part of PETS
  • Too easy for info overload, so need to look at how we deliver message. Too much cross over in training sessions
  • Pick good public speakers and motivators for doing presentations
  • Need to re-assess compliance and control by district on autonomous club
  • Re-assess assembly – boring – same, same, no difference
  • Need to assess the number of President trainings to avoid them missing valuable information because of numerous time commitments
  • Relevance of PETS – why are Districts different in their training – should be consistency
  • Training is a function of leadership – not forced.
  • Club Vision – more action required to inform clubs
  • More pre-planning for PETS
  • Presidents’ Elect Training – combining districts for parts of training; international focus; training available via technology, on line, webinars
  • Club Leadership Plan – succession plan to cultivate leadership in future years
  • Standard PETS content
  • Just because you have been an AG does not mean you can do a good engaging presentation. Get people who can deliver message
  • PETS – a clearer picture of what is needed for your role – not duck !%#

District and Clubs Communications

  • Emulate RIBI website to Aust/NZ district/club
  • Time to end printed directories an go electronic
  • Developing partnerships; corporate sponsorships, emergency services eg CFA
  • Printed directories quickly outdated – online preference
  • Web administrator limitations – websites only work if current
  • Must move forward with technology and not wait for all members to agree
  • Combine district conferences
  • Problem: District directory expensive and out of date quickly. Solution: electronic directory that can be updated instantly eg clubrunner
  • Reinforce email protocol
  • Standardize website over individual DG and district preferences
  • Problem: Information coming in to clubs from District etc is too complex, too late. Passing info onto members. Solution: Interdistrict storing of information – electronic forums to connect ?

Marketing and PR

  • Radio – joint club contribution, podcasts, listeners.
  • Contact reporters who write about charities etc they then go to their editors
  • Make contacts with media; GSE team - media/journalists relationships when they return
  • Mobile number – google maps register Rotary club – nee a mobile number
  • Register business on google maps
  • Social media
  • Youtube channel meetings recorded and played
  • Talk – especially to the younger generation
  • Billboards – sign on bus
  • Wheel covers for 4WD – 1300-4-rotary call centre NSW
  • PR is to create awareness, build knowledge. Advertise in clusters; have spin off seminars; create publicity via business people; work on the people we assist
  • We over play the service card
  • Projects need to be branded and be proud of it
  • Brand needs more awareness – not Rotary wheel
  • We need to create awareness – peoples’ knowledge is unknown
  • We don’t share what we get out of Rotary
  • Perception of old men; old, pale and stale
  • Clubs combining to advertise in paper on project
  • Facebook project
  • Use of blog
  • Face to face communication. All members promote by knowing “elevator speech”
  • Combine with other groups to leverage effect
  • Club prints and distributes local paper – profit 30% local project, 50% Rotary
  • Website – library; facebook – newspaper; blog – diary; twitter – short diary. Demographics for above ! Bulletins private space !
  • Communicating – twitter. Linkin – set up with press/media, upgrade 14 days – system optimization.
  • Get Rotary noticed – pull up banners
  • Re-branding exercise – simple is smart (Siegel & Gale)
  • Appoint a “purposeologist” in every club. Contact: Loryn Clark, District 9800
  • Make sure good PR info is shared; ie humanity in motion
  • Share PR and communication mediums in public places eg doctors rooms etc
  • Make sure you have an elevator speech
  • Make Rotary open to everyone – remove exclusivity
  • Promote Rotary in local businesses
  • Talk up networking opportunities
  • Stop speaking in Rotary language
  • Make sure we use the word Rotary eg Rotary Polio Plus
  • Young people and women be the public face of the organization
  • Make editor of local paper an honorary member of your club
  • Cappuccino Rotary Club (over coffee and muffins)
  • Power of a photo – what works well, make them interesting
  • Get a good connection with a journalist
  • Tell people what we do !
  • Clubs join together, using funds for local PR eg paper column, radio
  • Focus on local community activities in marketing – sells sponsorship
  • What’s in it for people, local businesses etc ?
  • Positive, strong images; youth focus images; female focus images
  • Better distribution of the marketing message
  • Advice of the annual calendar of marketing activity for clubs in line with global campaign
  • Clear brand identification; simplify the brand (realization that this is underway)

Rotary Beyond the District

  • We need to make the Council on Legislation realize we want to simplify Rotary. Are we going to keep changing our DGs every 12 months as people feel it’s very disruptive to the Districts.
  • Is our structure relevant to the future development of Rotary ? We need to change to become a flexible group to meet the needs of “causes” in the future, and attracting the next generation to continue in Rotary
  • Understand and use the millennium goals to raise funds for projects
  • Partnerships
  • Rotary Youth Exchange
  • Encourage Rotarians to attend International Convention
  • Are Rotary leaders an exclusive group ? (perceived)
  • A process to improve transparency
  • How do I go about getting on an international level
  • How do we find out about opportunities ?
  • Target those with appropriate knowledge
  • Challenge Rotary in forums like Future Leaders Seminar across multi districts
  • Partnership development with corporates for service delivery
  • More multi- district activities and projects
  • Issue – changes can only come from Council on Legislation. Problem – only every 3 years; submissions need to be in writing, with 3 year plans then issue not addressed for 5 or 6 years !! Why can’t Council meet more often via Skype or similar ??
  • Issue – why do we deny skilled people the opportunity to advance in Rotary unless they are a past District Governor ? People should be “promoted” on skills and merit. Unerstand the hierarchical process but don’t agree with it and it needs to be addressed.
  • Transparent processes – write more role descriptions
  • Challenge Rotary at seminar with provocative speakers (maybe non-Rotarians)
  • Develop blogs around challenging Rotary leadership – de politicize !!
  • Re-instate humanitarian grants
  • Club funder to allow members to undertake projects
  • Don’t change the theme annually
  • World leader to have 3-5 year plan
  • Council on Legislation - “e” conference it of Skype it. Still needs personalities. Can’t handle everything remotely – needs drivers.
  • What are our millennium goals – not published widely
  • Rotary as a multi-cultural organization has to be reflected in its behaviour and standards
  • Is “e” club really the future – what about social content, fellowship and friendships and an emphasis on local. Meetings could be varied, some “e”, some local regular meetings
  • Corporate membership, corporate partnerships
  • National projects need closer oversight

Service Projects

  • Project success stories; Anti-Graffitti group – free paint
  • Beyond polio – food security ? water security ? One major project
  • Beyond polio – something that we can fix within a reasonable time
  • Beyond polio – malaria ? something iconic
  • Portal of projects with idea, how you did it, outcome. Log into database RAWCS
  • Major project – someone will come up with a single idea
  • Beyond polio – something that we can fix within a reasonable time
  • Need a champion to lead projects; skills audit of club
  • Contact DG to tell them about projects to get them to promote to all clubs in the district
  • Sharing ideas with other clubs
  • Combined Rotary clubs can attain substantial result
  • Indigenous projects – lack of projects – why ? Not interested. Health scholarship s? Home hosting ?
  • Run a fundraiser and give money to competing applications
  • Adopt a purpose eg primary school
  • Setting up procedures eg running forums. Once set up – set free
  • Children in need in area of need eg Fiji, Timor. Photo/collage plus letter explaining dreams sent to Rotary club. $250 to child for education.
  • Apprenticeship exchange programme 6/52 – careful criteria
  • Scholarships; provide fees and kit to a carefully selected student eg
  • sport
  • medical
  • engineering
  • catering
  • Raise funds and other community services compete for funds
  • Partner with other clubs and organizations to carry out service projects
  • Create a website to post successful projects on
  • Encourage all Rotarians to participate in an International Service project

Rotary Foundation

  • Definition. Annual/Refresher
  • Education
  • Foundation chair
  • Weekly information
  • How do we more effectively market and educate members on Foundation:
  • Talk more about beneficiaries and outcomes
  • Use technology for remote clubs eg Skype a meeting speaker !
  • Help members feel they make a difference
  • Educate members by showing pictures of projects that have been completed
  • Incorporate EREY $100 in annual fees; obtain tax deductible receipt from Parramatta
  • Educate members – concentrate on individual items/parts of TRF before moving on
  • Have a dedicated Rotarian in the club to promote TRF
  • Future Vision is a positive move for the Rotary Foundation
  • TRF Roadshow of 4 group clusters (~ 400 people) over 4 weekends (2hrs each plus dinner) – exposing more people to the Rotary Foundation. Contact: John Barnes, District 9810
  • Members need to know TRF by experiencing it; eg Peace Scholar
  • Develop a cheat sheet about the changes:
  • Sell the simplicity
  • How it will affect the members
  • Publicise that 100% of TRF contributions go to projects, not to administration
  • Fundraising concept – donation of wine to be sold with 50% to Foundation and 50% to club; ie find someone with a product and gift it to be sold in this respect. (see RC Hutt City)
  • Centurion Club – an expectation (on subscriptions sheet include “The Rotary Foundation”). Educate about TRF along with this expectation
  • Future grants will be easier in Future Vision
  • District TRF personnel need to visit clubs to discuss programs
  • Combination of media to get the message across
  • Clubs take out, say, $3 per meeting to go to The Rotary Foundation. Members become Centurions
  • Simplify the different aspects of the Rotary Foundation by splitting into smaller parts. “Bit at a time”
  • Future Vision needs to be explained to non-pilot districts

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