Strategic Planning Outcomes
Posted by Vi Hughes on Jul 06, 2016
On Tuesday , Donna Hutton presented the results of the SWOT Analysis that was done by the incoming board. This is an exercise that helps groups define their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats in order to help us to become a better club.
Some of the identified strengths were our long history, stable membership, good succession planning, good traditions, interesting varied speakers and well organised meetings. They also included our legacy projects, a good community reputation and our successful fundraising activities. Some of our identified weaknesses were that most of our members are older, we have a fair number of part time members (those who only attend meetings sporadically), we have limited participation in some activities and the participants tend to be the same people. Some members also have trouble with the cost of participation in our activities. The identified opportunities were to encourage our affiliation with the Rotaract group in order to eventually bring in younger members, and to use Twitter and Facebook postings to advertise our group to a younger audience.
Other opportunities were to connect with the Fort McMurray club to see if we can help with some project there, and also to identify new legacy projects, new partnerships and new ventures. Our threats included the future of fundraising (we need to expand our currently limited sources of revenue), the fact that our club as currently structured can not qualify for charitable status (should we set up a separate entity for this?), and that some members think our weekly meetings could be reduced in frequency, or in time required per meeting.
The top four issues that were identified were- frequency and length of meetings, participation in volunteer activities, continuous flow for club funding and identification of other groups that we can work with to expand our community service. A questionnaire will be sent out to club members towards the end of July to be returned and reviewed by the end of August, with presentation of an action plan to be made in early September.