Governor Mick's October Message

A giant Thank You is in order to all the clubs for the warm welcome and fantastic hospitality. I have always said I felt welcomed when visiting a Rotary club and now after 39 more I still feel the same.

 

As I have traveled the District, I have been surprised by how many Rotarians have never been to a Rotary meeting outside their Club! If you have never been to another Rotary club I would encourage you to do so and see what other clubs do. Some are structured and business like, others laid back, we have singing clubs and ones that enjoy roasting their fellow Rotarians. But all have fun and enjoy the fellowship with each other.

 

Mark Maloney’s and my primary goal for the 2019-2020 Rotary year is to “Grow Rotary”. I got a major surprise in September when Rotary International released it’s final membership numbers to start my year and our District had fallen from 1,950 members in January to 1,875 members on July 1! What had been a goal to increase our membership by 50 members from 1,950 in January to 2,000 by the end of my year now became a goal of 125. I am pleased to let you know that you heard the message and our membership is back up 29 members to 1,904 as of 9/30/19 and we are currently leading Zone 29 in Membership growth! We, for the most part, do a pretty good job in attracting new members to Rotary and I want to say thank you to everyone of you who has asked someone to a meeting or brought in a new member. Great work.

 

Bringing in new members is part of the answer to our membership dilemma.  Retaining our current members is just as important as evidenced by the 75 member drop from January to July. While we don’t have formal attendance requirements anymore, pay attention to those members who aren’t showing up like they used to. There may be legitimate reasons they can’t attend but it may also be a sign they are becoming disengaged. Each of us can contribute to Rotary in many ways, but being an engaged member in some way is critical to the success of your club and our organization. So enough about membership.

 

Service and fund raisers are happening all over the district from silent and live auctions, to hamburger cookouts at Friday night football games, to pasta feeds to soup luncheons, to poker tournaments,  pancake feeds and Oktoberfest events. A huge thank you goes out to all of the clubs who participated in the Dictionary Project this year.  This is a project that reaches all of the 3rd or 4th graders in our communities. I can’t think of a better way to promote literacy in our youth.

 

Let’s be sure to get the word out on all the good work we are doing and use social media to promote your events and make sure to make sure your newspapers cover the event.

 

Don’t forget our online business meeting coming up October 17th to elect members to the District board and approve the financials from last year. Thank you to all of the delegates who have committed to attend the webinar.

 

The District is here to serve the needs of the clubs. Please reach out to me or any of my leadership team if you need anything.