Michael Walstrom
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of blog posts celebrating Membership Month.
By Michael Walstrom, president of the Rotary Club of Downtown Boca Raton, Florida
Rotary, like any business, has customers. For us, those customers are our members and we must provide value to assure satisfied customers. The key to attracting and retaining young professional “customers” is presenting a Value Proposition that is attractive. Continue reading
Albert E. Kafka, Rotary Club of Wien-Oper, and Peter M. Rabensteiener, Rotary Club of Wien-Stadtpark
Change is the only constant in life. No matter how prepared we think we are for it, transition can be challenging. Closing the exciting chapter of our lives as members of Rotaract and moving on to the new adventures that await us in Rotary can be difficult. As a young person, how do we fit in? A desire to help others through this difficulty and to promote true unity among Rotarians led us, along with Philip-Sebastian Marchl, to create Intarconnect. Continue reading
Elizabeth Usovicz
By Elizabeth Usovicz, Public Image Coordinator for Zone 31
English was not my father’s first language. And like a lot of second language learners, he was an avid reader. He especially liked Conrad and Melville and read their bodies of work not once but several times during his life. As a young man, it was not uncommon for him to drop my mother off at her home after a date and head for a neighborhood diner, book in hand, to read and drink coffee until the night waitress closed up and shooed him home. Continue reading
Members of the Dupont Circle Rotary Club at a tree planting event.
By Mandy Warfield, president, and Emma Satzger, membership coordinator, Rotary Club of Dupont Circle, Washington D.C., USA
The Rotary Club of Dupont Circle was started six years ago by a group of Rotary alumni, and since then, the club has grown to include many other facets of the community, including individuals who have not had any previous experience with Rotary. Continue reading
Stratford-Upon-Avon club members prepare for the Shakespeare Duck Race.
By Jonathan Craig, secretary of the Rotary Club of Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Our club meets at lunch and has a membership that is mostly retired. We do have a few younger members who have their own businesses or retired early, but gone are the days when employers encouraged their local bank managers to take two hour lunches. We began to be seen as a club that wasn’t a good fit for young working people. So it became a strategic goal for our club (and also for RIBI) to attract younger members and also more women. Continue reading
A facilitator leads the discussion during the Ideas Factory.
By Daniel Vankov, president of the Rotary Club of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
At the Rotary Club of Brisbane, we attempt to be the motor behind major community initiatives in our community, in Queensland, and beyond. As members, we have a duty to continue our impact and expand it. Getting a good measure of the club, our strengths and weaknesses, so we can build on them is not easy. For humans, we can look in a mirror to do a self-assessment. At least externally. But organizations don’t have it so easy. We knew we needed to create the right mirror to get a good look inside our club. Continue reading
Michael Walstrom leads a presentation on attracting young professionals into Rotary.
By Michael Walstrom, president-elect of the Rotary Club of Downtown Boca Raton, Florida
I think most would agree that Rotary has struggled to attract and retain young professionals. At a district conference in 2016, my district governor, Eric Gordon, asked me to put together a program for “YP” development. This was a new committee, so I was starting from scratch. I was 38 at the time and two years into my Rotary journey. The only thing I really knew was that I had a lot to learn. Continue reading
Inauguration evening in Pentyrch, Wales, 6 February 2018.
By Tony Quinn, Rotary Coordinator
Recently, I attended a memorable event, the inauguration of a 15-member satellite club, Garth, in South Wales District 1150. What is unique about this satellite is that it is being hosted by my own club of Chelwood Bridge, which is in District 1200. How is that so? Continue reading
Rotarians in District 7070 package bags with items for childrens’ birthday parties to be delivered to local food banks.
By Bob Wallace, Rotary Coordinator for Zone 24 East and a member of the Rotary Club of Port Hope, Ontario, Canada
At our zone institute in Winnipeg, I saw a presentation about Rotary’s membership leads program and how districts are receiving many requests from the program but not following up on the leads.
Later, I was at Rotary headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, USA, for training as a Rotary Coordinator, and Brian King, RI Director of Membership Development, pointed out to us how failing to follow up on these leads represented a major public image failure. Think about it. A person makes contact with you, and you totally ignore them? What does that say about your organization? Continue reading
Members of the Rotary Club of Sunyani Central, Ghana, hold a polio day rally.
By Frank Kofi Owusu Debrah, Foundation Chair and Past President of the Rotary Club of Sunyani Central, Ghana
It is certainly true that the reasons for a person joining Rotary are varied and many. For some, it’s the personal and business networking that motivates them. For others, it’s fellowship and a sense of belonging to a world-wide organization of people. Still for others, it’s a status symbol. Whatever the reasons, everyone has one. Sadly, some of the reasons don’t fit Rotary’s primary purpose; a network of problem solvers living the mantra of Service Above Self. Continue reading
