Club Assembly January 9, 2025, President Cindy Gillespie Presiding!
We had our semi-annual Club Assembly on January 9, 2025, presided over by President Cindy. Her agenda included updates on goals, financial year-to-date, philanthropic giving, a membership presentation by President Nominee Mark Campbell, and an explanation of the Club’s hiking and walking program from Past President Mary Behr.
President Cindy’s goals for her presidential year focus on impact (increasing the number and impact of service projects), reach (growing the Club and building a strong board and succession), engagement (by building opportunities to get involved), and adaptation (fun, inclusive, and effective meetings). Most of Cindy’s goals are being met: We have more service projects, and more people involved in those projects; members are more engaged in social activities, building community, and club functioning; our Board of Directors is strong and succession plans are developing; and our meetings are fun and inclusive (author’s comment). Cindy mentioned some key statistics about our service projects: Our goal is 75% club participation in projects with at least one project every month. So far, 72% of our members have participated in service projects and we’ve spent 682 hours on these projects (including 81 hours from Interacters)! Our projects have included working at the Gravenstein Apple Fair, the Santa Rosa Kagoshima Student Exchange Program, the Thanksgiving meal project at the Living Room, Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery clean up, greenhouse construction for the UC Master Gardener Program, multiple ongoing Leroy’s Golden Hammer projects, Mike Kelly Warm Coat Drive, Ridgeway Garden ADA Project, Laguna de Santa Rosa Native Plant work morning, bike build, to name a few.
Great news on the financial update: we are on track! Our giving program is also thriving. We’ve given to the Senior Center Oktoberfest, Family Justice Center (our raffle recipient), Emergency Prep Help, District 5130 Youth Exchange Golf Tournament, the Living Room, District Fire Disaster Response for the Lake Boyles Fire, the Burma Humanitarian Mission, North Bay Science Discovery Day, and many Golden Hammer projects. And, we have almost $18,000 reserved for giving through the rest of the Rotary year! Our giving program is focused on impact; giving to organizations who really need our money.
President Nominee Mark Campbell provided the membership update. Like every club in the District, Sunrise has declining membership, although our decline is lower than most clubs in the district. Mark gave us some best practices and key facts about how one club got 80 new members in 18 months. They focused on social media, posting a 3-month speaker calendar, and using lots of event photos linking to the website. Most prospective new members were referred by a current member. Mark asks each Sunriser to identify at least 2 prospective members and do initial outreach to them in the next 30 days. Mark suggests focusing on Rotary, community, professional, and service contacts. Past President and Rotary recruitment superstar Penny Millar told us about how she works her magic. Penny’s efforts have resulted in the recruitment of at least 16 new members! Penny has lots of interactions with a variety of people from business, social, and community activities. She has ways of inserting the Rotary name into many of her conversations. For example, a Rotary activity that she will be involved in on an upcoming weekend often comes up organically during a conversation and it’s sometimes a Rotary conversation starter.
Past President Marty Behr spoke about the Club’s hiking and walking program. We had 5 hikes in 2024 and matching walks in months with no hikes. The hikes included Annadel State Park, Bodega Headlands, Hunters Camp, Jack London SP, and Foothill Regional Park. Marty and the team, Dan Rosaschi, Mark Campbell, and MJ Girard will host hikes and walks in 2025 as well, including Roseland Community hike in February. The hike/walk program is great for socializing, exercising, team building, and having great lunches! The team is looking to increase participation in this important Club activity.
Thank you to Cindy, Mark, Penny, Marty, and the rest of the executive team for a fun, interesting, and helpful Club Assembly.
