Sunrise Club Incorporates, Changes to new RI Structure

Posted by Scott Wisdahl 
 
Starting July 1, 2005 the Fort St John Sunrise Rotary Club is officially operating as an incorporated Society.  As part of this move the Society adopted the new organizational structure promoted by Rotary International.
 

In order to provide better protection to its members and facilitate better planning and organization the Sunrise Club set up a Society that was incorporated in early 2005.  Starting July 1, the entire Club began being run from the Society.  The Society is incorporated in BC and had required permission from Rotary International to use the name and to operate as a Society.

Much of the credit for this occurring goes to David Fowler who starting from ground work done by Augustine Earmme of the Afternoon Club, was able to push through the various levels of RI's organization and find someone in the headquarters to give permission.

As the incoming President, Kevin Aughtrey worked hard to get everything ready to make this change.  From his experience as the District Treasurer, he was able to see that this is the direction other Clubs and hopefully soon, that the District will go.  He was also aware of the other changes coming from RI on the organization of Rotary Clubs.

As part of the move to the Society, the Club also changed its organizational structure to correspond to the new RI standards.  The Club is probably the first to do this in the District and probably a leader in the Zone.

The main change that has occurred is to remove the link between Directors of the Club/Society and the four avenues of service.  Our Club has moved to have three Directors at Large as part of the Executive, rather than 4 Directors representing the 4 avenues of service. The rest of the Executive is made up of: President, President-Elect, Secretary, and Treasurer, with the Past president and Sergeant-at-Arms as non-voting members.

In addition the Society now has three standing committees to represent our basic functions.  The Chairs of these Committees will be appointed soon.  It is hoped that each Chair will stay in "office" for three years.  Their role is to coordinate the various activities related to the Committee, appoint, train and mentor the various function and sub-committee heads, and to regularly report to the Executive. 

The three standing committees are:  Service Projects, Youth and Exchange, and Foundation and International.