Magic

Rotary International President (2007-08) Wilf Wilkinson gives the “Charge to Action” at the Presidential Membership Conference held in San Jose on Friday, August 17 and Saturday, August 18, 2007 with over 615 Rotarians in attendance from California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Nevada. The conference was co-chaired by Past RI Director, Sam Greene, RC of Westlake Village and Past Regional RI Membership Coordinator, Brenda Cressey, RC of Paso Robles Sunrise, both from RI District 5240.

The speakers presented new and innovative approaches to membership including volunteering trends and demographics. Effective membership tools are now available on the RI Website. Clubs were challenged over and over to really think about what they are doing and how they might begin to change. In a speech entitled “Friendly Fire”, given by Past RI President Cliff Dochterman, in his usual humorous way, clubs were asked to think about why it is they are losing so many potentially great Rotarians each year. Membership loss each year continues at a rate of 12 to15% or higher and if we can find ways to reduce that percentage we won’t have a membership problem and can then concentrate on serving others.

The conference also featured many interactive roundtable discussion opportunities to exchange ideas and best practices having an overall theme that clubs must establish strong membership committees and long term membership strategies that will ensure strong effective Clubs by reducing membership loss and increasing membership by truly representing the diversity and cultures in our communities.

In taking a program theme from The Rotary Foundation, it’s time that “Every Rotarian, Every Year” become involved in membership. It is a responsibility of our own membership and we must identify and induct quality new members on a consistent basic.

Rotary membership continues to spiral down in the US over the last 5 years and in the words of one of our attendees about the conference, “It’s time to throw out the old ways of doing things and ask the difficult questions. I only hope that we can keep this type of self assessment going into the future.”

Comments and questions may be addressed to webmaster@rotary5220.org. We hope you enjoy your visit.

Rotary District 5220 - Serving California's Central Valley and Mother Lode