Every Rotary International Convention features a series of breakout sessions on a variety of Rotary related topics. The 2018 Toronto convention is no exception.The breakouts were held at various meeting rooms at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and on the afternoon of Wednesday June 27th, a very special breakout was led by Past District Governor (2008-09) Doug Logan, Rotary E-Club of Atlantic Canada and District Governor Elect (2019-20) Louisa Horne of the Rotary Club of Halifax Harbourside. The session was called "Simply Irresistible - A contemporary approach to membership (and thriving clubs)."
Despite being one of the last sessions of the week the lecture theatre had a good turnout to hear Doug and Louisa provide a very impressive presentation with engaging graphics and some technological wonders including an instant online poll of the attendees.
Membership is a hot button topic but Doug and Louisa argued that simply looking for and asking more pepole to join rotary is not the answer. Rather clubs need to look within and examine ways that the clubs themselves can change and improve to become "Simply Irresitible" to non Rotarians that they want to join. This message was delivered with a lot anecdotes and data taken from many experiences from within D7820 and many of our clubs were mentioned "anonymously".
Rotarians from our district would have recognized many of the messages as these themes have been part of our Training for Leaders of Clubs (TLC) for several years. Rotary international has taken notice and wants to learn from us!
The breakout was a great success and Doug and Louisa stayed after the session for quite while answering questions, exchanging contact information and ideas.
Photo - LR PDG Doug, PDG Don Sword (2017-18) RC Avalon Northeast and DGE Louisa on stage just prior to the breakout session.