Greetings to you all!
I was recently reading an article on R.I. President Elect Ian H.S. Riseley’s speech to incoming district governors at Rotary’s International Assembly in San Diego, California. While reading the article, I noted some comments made by Risely about Rotary International demographics. I compared these statements to the same demographics within our club and the results made me proud to be the Club President.
Below is the portion of the article on rotary.org, which caught my interest.
In his address to the 2017-18 class of district governors, Riseley also urged clubs to improve their gender balance and lower the average age of their members.
Only 22 percent of Rotary’s members are women, up from 13 percent 10 years ago. At that rate, Riseley said, it will take another three decades for Rotary to achieve gender parity.
“Three decades is far too long to wait to achieve a Rotary that reflects the world in which we live. We need to make it a priority now,” he said.
Noting that 103 of the 539 incoming governors are women, Riseley said they are the type of women we need in Rotary, “leaders who will help Rotary connect with, and represent, and better serve, all of the members of all our communities.”
Riseley also believes it is imperative that clubs find ways to attract and engage younger members. Today only 5 percent of reported members are under 40, and a majority of members are over 60, Riseley told the audience.
“Consider what Rotary stands to look like 10 or 20 years from now if we don’t get very serious, very soon, about bringing in younger members,” Riseley said.
Clubs will make a difference this year through their own decisions, said Riseley, but it will take teamwork on a global scale to move Rotary forward and secure its future.
“We know that we can do more together than we could ever hope to do alone,” he told incoming governors. “I ask you to keep that spirit of teamwork and cooperation always in your minds and to take it back with you to your districts.”
Here is what makes me proud to be the Bar Harbor (MDI) Rotary Club President. According to MyRotary.org we have a club membership gender breakdown of 51% male and 49% female. Not only does that annihilate the worldwide average of 22% female membership, but it proves so much about our club! It proves that we are fair, objective, intelligent and trend setters. I say these things because we have so many long time female members, many of whom have been Club President and more, and this fact alone is testament to the brilliance of the early club membership! We have already achieved what Riseley is predicting will take another 30 years to achieve worldwide - gender parity!
The other statistic that was stated was that only 5% of Club Members are below the age of 40 and that the majority of members are over 60. While the majority of our members are over 60, 9% are under 40 and 31% are under 60. While these numbers do align with Rotary numbers worldwide, we are definitely ahead of the curve and I am positive that are membership age will continue to drop even while we maintain our wonderful veteran members!
Thank you for allowing me to be your President and please, please keep up the wonderful work!!!
Shaun
