From our DG

August is Membership and Extension Month, a good time for Clubs to focus on developing strategies to attract and recruit new members. But membership is not just a focus for this month but for the whole Rotary year. So impor-tant is membership that Rotary International President Kalyan Banerjee has identified it as one of just two criteria for the 2011-2012 Presidential Citation.
Seventeen years ago, when I was inducted as a member of the Rotary Club of Yea in June 1994, there were 1.2 million Rotarians in what were identified as 165 countries and geographic areas around the world. Fast forward to mid 2011 and there is still a similar number of Rotarians. The difference is that there are in several thousand more Rotary Clubs and Rotary now has a presence in 200 countries and geo-graphic areas. We have inducted as many new Rotarians over the past five years as we have lost.
As Rotarians, we were all identified by our sponsors as being worthy of membership of our Rotary Clubs. We were identified as having the individual qualities to make a contribution to our Clubs and your communities. We were identi-fied as having the skills and the talents to share with our fellow Rotarians and to make a differ-ence to our Clubs.
Thank your sponsor, if possible, for the introduction they gave you to the world of Rotary but repay the faith they had in you by actively identifying and recruiting new members to grow Rotary in your community.
The Rotary Club of Myrtleford has identified membership growth as the Club‘s major project for the year. Under the leadership of President Phil Macdonald, members this year will be re-quired to get their Ask in Gear‖. It‘s a lead and a direction we can all follow. Both Rotary International and the District Membership team under the leadership of Patti Bulluss have also de-veloped a number of tools and strategies to as-sist Clubs indentifying and recruiting new members.

Membership Month is also about extending Rotary. There are a number of rapidly growing communities within District 9790 into which Rotary can be extended. Some of these can initially be reached by existing neighbouring Clubs reaching out to these communities whilst others have been identified for establishing new Rotary clubs. The District Extension Committee is actively pursuing the establishment of three new Clubs this Rotary year including an E-Club.

The District Board at its first meeting for 2011-2012, in finalising the District 3 year Strategic Plan, adopted a goal of having 65 Clubs and 2000 Rotarians by 30 June 2014. In meeting this target, we need to extend Rotary, identify, recruit and induct new members ensuring they represent diversity in the community and retain our existing members.

Throughout this Rotary year, let‘s share our passion for Rotary.

Yours in Rotary

David Anderson
District Governor 2011-2012
Rotary District 9790