By Rotary staff
You are on the planning committee for your district conference that will be held in-person and virtually. Part of your committee’s job is to decide how to involve members of Rotaract. Someone suggests they be asked to manage the Zoom registration and provide technical support for virtual participants to leverage their tech skills. However, others mention there could be more meaningful ways to engage Rotaract members in your conference. What would you do?
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Rotary Voices 
I would definitely ask the Rotaract members to assist with Zoom registration and other technical issues that would arise during the Conference. I would also involve the members in the planning process for the Conference and ask them for ideas on breakout sessions that would involve both Rotaract members and Rotarians. This is a perfect avenue for introducing more Rotarians to Rotaract and the value they represent.*=
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Proposing to the Rotaract members in handling Zoom registration is already one way to involve the Rotaract but it is not the only one. There are definitely more Rotaract members and handling zoom will be handled only by few ones. I would gather all the ideas from the committee members on all possible ways to involve the Rotaract members, discuss the possibilities and work on a plan on how to engage them.
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Early in the planning process, why not ask them how they’d like to be involved?
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Involving Rotaractors doesn’t have to be limited to one form of support. Given that the conference is to be held in-person as well as virtually, they could be involved as greeters / ushers for the people attending in person; depending on skills and talents of the Rotaractors concerned, they could be involved as MCs, introduce and thank speakers, be given a specific event to organise e.g. one of the social functions etc. Really, given that Rotaract now has equal status with Rotary, they could probably do anything that Rotarians do, given that we all have different skills, talents and areas of expertise.
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I would invite a member(s) of the District Rotaract team to serve on the conference committee, and let them determine how and where Rotaract members could take part in the conference.
We should not assume we know the skills or interests of others when we want to partner with them for events and projects.
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I would definitely be involving them in a lot of meaningful activities. Some thoughts here:
👉 Make them part of the social media team and have them contribute effectively
⚡️ Involve them in the events to drive better engagement with the audience during breaks
💥 Have them drive the talent and other initiatives as an opportunity for them to learn and manage bigger events
🔥 Get them involved in effectively driving the marketing initiatives both pre and post the event
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