Today’s meeting was light hearted with lots of quips and wise cracks coming from the floor – a fun meeting.
Announcements
Lakeside is in good shape according to Joe Watson. Only 140 tickets are left to be sold with tickets capped at 575 (last week 550 was mentioned??). We are weak on selling lottery tickets. More effort is needed here but most of these sales are made at the event.
The Big Bike Ride scheduled for Wednesday August 15th is still 13 riders short. Pledges totaling $50 is required from each rider. Lawrence has since sent out an email outlining the route and time (6 PM at Beaver and Bulldog).
Our annual Bar B Q is at Jamie’s place on the lake the next night. Cost is $30 for your choice of chicken or steak and includes alcohol. Bring $30 next week as funds will be collected before the event. You can send an e-transfer to Lawrence (Albert is expected to be the first to send money this way – one of the quips mentioned above).
Sergeant at Arms
We had a surprise stand-in for today’s meeting as Mae is away in Europe – Owen McElhinney. Owen announced that he had just become a grandparent with the birth of little Ellis. Owen led us in a humorous little quiz about Scottish words that are seldom heard anymore and are impossible to pronounce and spell unless you are Scottish. Lawrence and Karmel also told jokes which resulted in more jollies. It was a fun time with very little money being raised.
Guest Speaker – Gerry Willard
Gerry introduced members of the Membership Committee for the Club – Jim Brindle, Jamie Edwards, Kathleen O’Connor, Lesley Allison and Mike Molloy (hope I didn’t miss anyone). He presented some interesting stats on membership which are as follows:
Year Recruits Today Resignations
17/18 1 1 13*
16/17 5 2 4
15/16 3 0 9
14/15 5 1 6
13/14 2 0 7
12/13 8 3 5
11/12 6 0 4
10/11 10 8 4
Of the 52 that resigned during this period, the following reasons were given:
Deceased 5
Health 6
Transfer 5**
Cost 5
Other 6
Unknown 25
Gerry said that when he went through the 52 resignations 23 were not actively involved in club activities.
He gave his definition of “Insanity” – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
He raised possible solutions:
- Change meeting format?
- Change meeting location?
- Change meeting frequency?
- More hands-on projects?
- Less emphasis on meeting attendance and more on projects?
- Survey Rotaractors?
- Other???
He next showed a short video of RI President Barry Rassin that suggested we need to get more out of membership in Rotary and connect for the good of those we are trying to help. Gerry then asked for ideas from club members present that would help retain the membership we have and attract others to Rotary. The following ideas emerged:
- Training in Rotary
- Get new members on a Committee to get them involved
- Provide more information on international projects that we are actively or peripherally involved in
- Spend a few minutes each week reporting on what Committees are doing
- Allow trial membership at reduced cost
- Invite Rotaractors to our meetings and one or two of us should go to their meetings
- Who do we know to bring into Rotary
- Allow more networking within the club for business purposes
- Have more classification talks
- Lawrence raised the point that we should work with those we partner with such as the Food Bank or internationally work with the Rotary Clubs in Peru to help those in Abraham’s island to advance (if that is what they want to do - my comment).
As the time had ended, Nancy Penney announced that next week’s meeting was on “Telling Tales” and she asked everyone to please bring in children’s books especially if they have been autographed by the author.
Great meeting – thanks Gerry!!
*This figure included some “clean-up” of people no longer on the books.
** This included people who have transferred to other clubs locally as well as those whose jobs were transferred elsewhere.
