President John, Rowan, Phil and David heard the following messages from Mark Huddleston’s presentation:
- The following statistics show Rotary in Australia has a membership crisis –
- Mark’s top 5 reasons why more members are leaving than joining are:
- Rotary is no longer seen as relevant.
Our clubs are smaller, our members are olderand less of us are working.
Our perceived capacity to network and serve our community has decreased.
- Ineffective external communication.
Our messaging is inconsistent, confusing, under resourced and often misdirected.
- The volunteering landscape has changed, but we have not changed our practices.
- We have become obsessed with processes, and not focused sufficiently on outcomes. Ie Meeting-centric rather than Service-centric
- We’ve become comfortable and apathetic.
- Rotary’s most valuable resource is the time our members are prepared to give.
- Potential member groups are time-poor:
- Students – study + part-time jobs
- Younger professionals – establishing careers and job workloads
- Small business owners – working extended hours to survive
- Those with jobs and young families – balancing life demands
- Business executives – work and travel commitments
- Busy people don’t have a lot of time to give, so the time they give must be effective and productive – Are our meetings a productive and effective use of our volunteer’s time?
- Clubs attracting busy people focus on ‘Less Meeting – More Doing’
- Hands on projects attract younger members.