A while back, I wrote a blog about a visioning exercise that the Eagle/Garden City Rotary Club is undertaking. The goal is to help us envision our future direction and priorities. We are looking at what our club's personality is, what type of a club we are, what characteristics are important to us and which areas of community service we want to focus on over the next three years.
Assisted by three trained facilitators, all of whom are local Rotarians, 13 members of our club met for over four hours on June 1. The discussion was lively and fruitful!
We discussed and examined topics such as what our club stands for and what the optimal size is for us to be most effective and maintain the existing camaraderie and friendship that is so highly valued by all of us. We talked about the importance of solid administrative practices and continuity through transitions in leadership.
The Rotary motto “Service above self” is sacred to all Rotarians, so of course, we spent the most significant amount of time discussing the types of service that best fit our club and the areas of the community, both local and global, that we serve best.
Not surprisingly, we believe, as we always have, that youth is the appropriate focus of our work. We can best serve our youth through activities such as leadership training experiences, youth exchange programs and support for those families and children who have been dealt great challenges or have been less fortunate than we are.To provide this type of service takes resources. So we talked about fundraising. How does a smaller club such as ours raise these resources, and how much can we expect to raise on a regular basis?
Lastly, we talked about the best ways to support our Rotary International efforts — such as eradicating polio through Polio Plus or helping organizations such as Semilla Nueva continue to do their great work.
We then used a systematic process to rank and pare down all the options we had discussed during the day. Our next step is to create a plan that will guide us in achieving the goals and objectives that best serve our community and are consistent with our personality as a club. Stay tuned for more about that plan.
It is the achievement of these goals that will be the benchmark of the success of our club and the visioning experience.