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PRESIDENTS
MESSAGE
Monday night is the Paul Harris dinner at Brothers
Leagues Club, 23rd February. It is 7pm for 7.30 start. We have
no meeting on that week. Friday February 27th is no lunchtime
meeting at the Hilton.
Our Zone Assembly is on 21 March at Brothers
Leagues Club, keep a note of that in your diary.
This week our guest speaker is Mr. Kevin Byrne
the Mayor of Cairns.
Our District Conference is on in Darwin May 1 and
2nd, any information regarding tours or application and registration
form I have a copy for members.
We are progressing with our joint project for renal
patients for the purchase of a bus to and from the Base hospital;
I will update members as we progress.
President Robyn
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Rotary 4-Way Test
1.
Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
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Our
Paul Harris Fellows
Rotarians
Sandy Astill, Max Bryant, Graham Cossins,
David Court, Jeff Crofts, Rupert Crossland, Herman Ehrlich, Bob
Fowler, Col Koppen, Bernie Mullins, Jim Watson, Denise Mitchell,
David Kirchner,
Honorary
Members
Ted Elliot OAM, Brian Fowler, Beres
McKeown, Bernie Mullins, Les Trevenan
Past Club
Members
Geoff Canton
Non
Rotarians
Christine FairbrotherMargaret Jarvis
Geoff GuestLou Piccone Lionel Williamson
Advertising
In the ad biz, sincerity is
a commodity bought and paid for like everything else.
Newsweek 1967
Advertising agency: eighty-five
percent confusion and fifteen per cent confusion.
The longest word in the English
language: and now a word from our sponsor.
Advertising may be described as
the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get
money off it.
I think that I shall
never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I’ll never see a tree at all.
Ogden Nash.
Membership
and why it’s a perennial in Rotary
by Barry Thompson
“Oh no!” I hear you cry. “Not another
diatribe on membership. Haven’t we heard it all before?”
Well, have you ever asked yourself
why it is that the subject of membership keeps on coming up? Let
me suggest that it keeps on coming up because we do not appear to
have taken any notice of what was discussed each time the subject
surfaced in the past.
A survey by Rotary International recently
shows that over the past 11 years the number of Rotarians in Zones
7A and 8 (i.e. Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands) has
fallen by about 5,800, despite the chartering of new clubs each
year. Indeed if it wasn’t for the approximately 4,900 new members
who joined those new clubs you can see that we would be in an even
bigger mess.
Twenty per cent of our members have
been members for three years or less. Twelve per cent have been
members for three to five years, 19 per cent for six to 10 years
and 49 per cent for more than 10 years. Twenty-eight per cent of
our members are retired from full-time employment, the second highest
percentage in the countries survey, and exceeded only marginally
by Europe.
Women are 11 per cent of our membership
against a worldwide average of 13 per cent with the United States
of America and Canada (20 per cent), Africa, the Philippines, Korea
and Central and South America all having a greater percentage of
female members than we do.
Our members are generally somewhat
older than the world average with only seven per cent being younger
than 40 (world average 11 per cent), with our figures for the age
groups 40 to 59 and 60-plus being greater than the world average.
Perhaps even more damaging is that much of our efforts to recruit
new members seem to be fruitless in the longer term because we lose
more than 40 per cent of our new members before they have been in
our clubs for more than three years.
OK, so I’ve produced a lot of statistics
and I know that you can get tired of looking at them, but we do
need to look at what these statistics tell us if we are to ensure
that our great association will prosper in the future. To me they
say that we are an aging organisation having little real success
in recruiting and retaining new members and still to recognise that
we are in a desperate need of real action to address the membership
issue.
We need to stop talking about membership
and really do something about it. Why do we need to do so?
Aren’t we doing lots of service and
enjoying ourselves as we are? Of course we are, but to only think
that way may soon result in apathy and reduced service. The world
is entitled to demand more of those who say “Service is our product”
because there is so much more which needs to be done. We can only
meet these demands if we have more enthusiastic Rotarians to share
the load and joy of meeting those demands.
In that process we can also do something
for ourselves because, as an example, the reduction in membership
now means a loss in magazine subscriptions of more than $120,000
each year to Rotary Down Under. More members would mean less need
to increase the costs of the magazine. More members should mean
reduced District dues and improved support of The Rotary Foundation.
Many of us have experienced life-changing
events through the magic of Rotary. Why are we generally so reluctant
to encourage others to share those experiences? We were asked to
join. That is all it takes to have someone else share our experiences.
That is all it takes for us to have more willing Rotarians on whom
to call to meet the demands of service. That is all it takes to
reverse the trends revealed in the statistics quoted earlier. That
is all it takes for each of us to meet new people who may become
our best friends. That is all it takes for each of us to honour
the Rotarian who first invited us into the great fellowship we call
Rotary.
Why not share “what’s in it for
you” with another? You will find that there is even more in it for
you. So what can I do? I am sure that each of us has been given
many ideas on how to address this issue.
Here is another, which I know has
worked very well for a Sydney club. A list of classifications
was prepared and club members were invited to write names of possible
members alongside each classification. Addresses were added and
a circular prepared addressing all the issues that are normally
raised when discussing membership. Five active club members then
wrote individual testimonials on their Rotary membership, which
were included in a pack distributed to each of the potential members.
The pack also contained information
on the club, a copy of The 4-Way Test, Rotary Basics, The Declaration
for Rotarians in Business and Professions and a copy of Rotary Down
Under. Two weeks after the mailing, club members followed up the
potential members, inviting them to a club meeting where an excellent
guest speaker was the attraction for the night. The plan worked
and membership in the club has increased. Will it work for you?
Rotary Down Under will send a sample
of the kits to every club in Australia and New Zealand. All we have
to do then is put in a little effort to personalise the documents
and send them to prospective new members.
So there is one idea. If you have another
successful idea I would love to hear of your success. Let’s not
just have words, let’s have action.
Author of this article Barry Thompson
is a member of the Rotary Club of Padstow, N.S.W., a District 9690
past governor and a past director and treasurer of Rotary International.
He is serving this year as the chairman of the R.I. Membership Development
and Retention Committee.
From Rotary Down Under
A
Rotarian At Work Abroad
Jenny Horton, of the Rotary Club of
Paddington-Red Hill, Qld., pictured, is back in Australia after
three months in Ethiopia where she worked with the United Nations
and the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the STOP program (Stop
Transmission of Polio).
In newsletters back to District 9600
she told of the dedication of the people who shared her service.
In one centre the staff walked for eight hours to collect vaccine
because they did not have a refrigerator or motorcycle. This had
to be done at night because the heat of the day would melt the ice
bricks in the vaccine carrier.
After that the children in the staff’s
immediate area were treated before a walk of two to three hours
to outreach sites. “My main tasks have been to teach, encourage
and check that the process is working,’’ she said.
“We must thank the people who had the
foresight to begin this incredible program that has benefited so
many people in so many ways.’’
In Ethiopia Rotarian Jenny attended
the Festival of Maryam Zion which attracted 500,000 Christians.
Churches in the city date back to the
12th and 13 th centuries.
From Rotary Down Under
Rotary
Down Under is now on line
Check it out at http://www.rotarnet.com.au/
The
Smith Family
Puts the cost of youth unemployment
in Australia,
In terms of the cost of lost earnings
and social security benefits for youth who did not complete year
12,
at $2.3 billion dollars per year
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