Reaching for the Roundup

Today I want to share with you the most valuable piece of advice I have ever received as a Rotarian. This simple quote genuinely helped me through a few challenges a little while ago, and I only wish I had have received it many, many years earlier. It has helped my decision making process as a district leader, but it can also be of use all Rotarians who are trying to move this great organisation forward, and in your non-Rotary lives as well. 

So, what was that piece of advice that I found so helpful at a challenging time? What are these words of wisdom? 

Don’t water your weeds. I guess some may find this quote a little cryptic, but as soon as I heard those words, they immediately resonated.

This is the time of year we often hear club presidents comment that they are only now getting into the swing of things and feeling confident in the role, and of course now they only have a few months remaining before someone else steps up. “It would have been nice to know at the start of the year what I now know as president.” Take it from me, a three year posting in my role is no different, and as the end to my tenure approaches, I now have plenty of advice that I’d love to send back in time to myself three years ago. But I guess that’s life. It’s one big learning curve. That’s why I think it’s important to pass on this one piece of advice to those who will be at the forefront of our membership struggles for the years to come.

I guess the crux of the matter is that we have to pick our battles. At the moment our Aussie cricketers are in India learning (sometimes the hard way) which ball to leave. It’s the same in life. I came into this role with a load of energy and good intentions, and some bold ideas about what clubs needed to do to attract and retain more members. I was slashing my bat at every ball that came my way. No doubt about it, I have certainly learnt a lot in this role in three years. I have been fortunate to have rubbed shoulders with some great Rotary minds and have acquired some good tips. But to be frank, it has always been about change that isn’t happening. Resistance to change has been my constant battle. Prior to my current district role, I spent three years as an assistant governor, and another two years prior to that as district TRF grants chair. It didn’t take me long to work out that district appointments are primarily about leading horses to water. No matter how hard you try, no matter how cool and refreshing the water, you just can’t make horses drink.

The thing about weeds is that they don’t need watering. They will grow on their own by sucking the nutrients and moisture from the soil that your (desired) plants need. In the same way, I’ve seen perennially (membership) challenged clubs suck the enthusiasm out of not only their own members, but the district leaders who try in vain to turn things around. That’s why I feel district leaders need to triage clubs from a membership development perspective. There will be clubs at the healthy end of the scale that do not need urgent attention, likewise there will be clubs at the terminal end of the scale that are either beyond help, or as is often the case, refuse to accept it. Some patients won’t recover from major surgery, even when it's the only option. Priority must be given to those clubs that need AND ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT help, and have a reasonable prospect of recovery. To do anything else is merely watering weeds. Clubs WILL shrivel and die. We need to accept that and move on, applying our most precious resource: TIME, to where it can do the most good. And that’s really what this blog is about – the productive use of our time and energy as leaders. Because each of us has only a finite amount.

I do want to be crystal clear on this, we need to make ourselves and other membership resources available to all clubs, of all shapes and sizes, everywhere. But it's got to be a two way street. They've got to be fair dinkum about it, and they must understand that the type of thinking that got them into the membership doldrums will not get them out if them. Most will want the situation to change, but only few are prepared to MAKE CHANGES in order to bring it about. In some cases an entire new plan of attack needs creating. Sometimes it’s just about pointing out existing Rotary documents that are available online, sometimes it’s about visiting clubs and presenting a different viewpoint on the topic, and sometimes it’s just about having a chat with a few members over a coffee. But there comes a time with some clubs, that the banging of heads against brick walls just has to stop. It’s a story I can tell over and over again of clubs at which maintaining the status quo has become paramount. When the prospect of handing in a charter is not seen as the worst case scenario, but the lesser of two evils compared with the other option which involves being dragged kicking and screaming out of the comfort zone, it’s time to move on. If it sounds callous, I’ll cop it. But if by letting those clubs drift into oblivion, you free up the energy and passion to fight for and work with the clubs that genuinely need and will respond to help, it’s the right thing to do.

There’s a little known fact regarding the inception of the Rotary Club of Seaford, the club I built from thin air and joined last November at its charter night. In October 2014 I was asked by our then district governor to speak with members of a small, membership challenged club in the same region. This club, which I will refer to as the Rotary Club of Next Door, has hovered between 6 and 8 members for as long as I can remember. I was of course very keen to have that conversation, and was ready, willing and able to help. But I have always stuck by a steadfast rule since taking on the role of district membership chair; I will only go where I’m invited. If any club wants help, they need simply ask. But I have never, and will never try to force help upon a club. I made this clear to the DG in question, and he fully expected I would get a phone call from the Rotary Club of Next Door within days. Again, that was October 2014.

In anticipation of that call, I started researching the demographics of the region so as to be fully prepared to help that club, but as a result of that research, I noticed the massive population growth in nearby Seaford, a region totally devoid of service clubs. That realisation was the spark that lit the Seaford flame within me, and two years (and one hell of a lot of work) later, the Seaford club was chartered with 21 members. Four months later, we have 26 members.

It is now two years and five months since I was told to expect a phone call from The Rotary Club of Next Door. That phone call never came and instead my watering can has spent a good deal of time a few miles away in Seaford, and at a number of other clubs in the district where it has been appreciated.

Penguins and Polar Bears - Part 2

If you didn’t read my part 1 of this 2 part blog about Rotary’s online presence, do yourself a favour and read it. If nothing else it will save me from explaining the Penguin & Polar Bear analogy again.

I promised this second part would cover some of my thoughts on Facebook, and more importantly the way Rotary uses, and sometimes misuses it. I will again stress, as I did in part one, that I don’t consider myself an expert in the field, but I’ve been using it long enough to understand it fairly well, and I wanted to share a few tips about aspects of Facebook for Rotary that don’t often get talked about.

One of the comments I made in part one was that if your club doesn’t have a strong online presence, you might as well be invisible to anyone under 50.  It simply beggars belief that there are still Rotary clubs that don’t have Facebook pages. For some, it’s because they don’t feel they have within their membership the necessary skill set to create and maintain such a page. If that's the case, I would be fairly confident there are members at district level that would be prepared to help set up a page. Have you considered asking your alumni for help? Rotaractors? Interactors? Family members? For others, it’s because they fear it and cannot see the good that can come from it. Sadly for some, Facebook represents change which must be rejected in all forms. 

I wish I could say that no harm can come from a Rotary club having a Facebook page, but unfortunately I can’t. I have seen instances where, as a result of improper security protocols being observed, disgruntled Rotarians in admin roles have caused some serious damage. It is vitally important that a club has at least two page admins, preferably more. There are also some practical reasons for this, such as ensuring some diversity in viewpoint and stories posted by your page, and being able to spread the load – especially if one admin is busy or sick… or leaves. As a personal example of this, I set up a Facebook page for my former Rotary club quite a few years ago. I did make sure there were other members appointed as admins, but over the years I made 99% of the posts on behalf of the club. That page was extremely active, and I used to post on behalf of it 3 or 4 times a week, but I left that club in November 2016 and sadly there has not been one single post made by that club’s page since. Not one. And there are most certainly members in the club capable of doing it. 

How important are “page likes”? They play a role, but are not as critical in determining reach as they once were. Even if I understood Facebook’s algorithms which determine who sees what in their Facebook feed, there would be little point in explaining it, because come next week it will likely have changed again. But even if only 10% of your “likers” get your message, 10% of 500 is better than 10% of 100. So in that respect, the more, the better. Rightly or wrongly, page likes can also play a role in conveying viability and relevance. Whether it’s a page for a restaurant or another small business, or a Rotary club, for some people, a high number of page likes conveys that “this is a popular organisation”. Some Facebook users would find a local Rotary club with 600 page likes a hell of a lot more attractive than a neighbouring club with 50 page likes. How do you get more page likes? Just ask. If every member asked all of their friends to like their club page, you would get a surprisingly positive result. And you can do it all at the push of a button. You can also embed a clickable Facebook “Social Plugin” onto your website, so visitors can like or visit your Facebook page from your website.

Understand though, that a large majority of those who have liked your page are likely to be fellow Rotarians, so there’s an element of preaching to the converted going on when you’re using Facebook to spread the message of the great work you are doing. Sometimes it’s really advantageous to spread a message to fellow Rotarians. For example, if you are holding a quiz night or some other event where you’re trying to get bums on seats, Rotarians in other clubs can be a great target audience. But if your aim is to try and get non-Rotarians interested in your club, you need to employ different tactics. Engagement is where it’s at. If your posts can generate comments and conversations, likes, and shares, your message will start spreading.

I feel the most underutilised resource in spreading great stories about your club and its work are your own members. Well, to be clear, those members with Facebook accounts. In my current club (average age 47), 25 of our 26 members are on Facebook. But in my previous club, with an average age closer to the national Rotary average of 71, less than 50% of members had Facebook accounts. But those members, even if only 50% of your club, can play a vital role in pushing out those posts. 

I do see members hitting the LIKE button, but I really want them to start hitting the SHARE button. Why is it that we will happily hit the share button when it's a video of a cat eating fruit loops out of the packet, but we can't find it within ourselves to share amazing stories about the work we do as Rotarians? Each of your members will have Facebook friends outside of Rotary, so whenever they share a story about your club, more and more members of the general public will get to hear about us. If 20 members each with 300 unique Facebook friends hit the share button, that story could potentially be seen by 6,000 non-Rotarians. Again, Facebook’s complicated algorithms will somehow conspire to make sure that it won’t be the full 6,000, but if NO-ONE hits the share button, your story’s life is limited to a portion of your page likers.

The final concept I wish to convey is something I have spoken about many times before. There are so many facets to Rotary, and so many stories to tell. If you really want to engage your Facebook audience, you shouldn’t limit your content solely to the activities of your own club. A comprehensive story about Rotary will also include stories of what your neighbouring clubs are up to, our Polio eradication efforts, Shelterbox, Peace Studies, Water and Sanitation projects, the Rotary Foundation, Youth Programs, Rotaract, Interplast, Romac, RAWCS, Australian Rotary Health, and many, many more. All of these programs have their own Facebook pages, as does Rotary Down Under, and those pages can all provide great content for your own club page. Just search for them all and like them, and as their fabulous stories fill your own timeline, you can share to your club page to give your audience a taste of that wider world of Rotary.

Penguins and Polar Bears - Part 1

Do you know why polar bears don’t eat penguins? Because polar bears live in the Arctic, and penguins live in the Antarctic. 

The Rotary world has long wondered why younger people aren’t joining (in larger numbers). For the main part, it’s like penguins and polar bears. Rotary Clubs and young people don't always coexist in the same world. I recently heard of a Rotary club celebrating the milestone that 100% of their members now had email accounts. Meanwhile most under 35 rarely if ever use email.

I promised I would write a blog about our online presence, so here it is. (Part 1 is about websites, Part 2 will cover Facebook.) I don’t consider myself an expert in this field, but I have built from scratch about ten websites over the years, and the way we present Rotary to the wider community is a very important piece of the membership puzzle, so I feel I need to weigh in on this critical subject. Before I get to the “hows” I want to discuss the “whys”.

Generations X & Y are increasingly relying on the internet and social media for the information they run their lives by. Things that once required the chopping down of trees, such as the Yellow Pages, street directories and newspapers have been replaced by Google, GPS and Facebook, all of which are now available on a smart phone. Quite simply, if your club does not have an attractive and prominent presence in this online world, you might as well be invisible to this demographic. 

I want to clear up a few myths about what is required for a good Rotary club website. Some have argued that a Rotary Club website should be used for the benefit of the members, providing information on previous and approaching meetings, bulletins, board minutes, even constitutional documents. Conversely, some believe a club website should be about informing the public about what you do. Well, I believe it can be both. But there are only certain things that should be on the landing page. People need a reason to engage. The moment your page appears, you need to hit people with great photos and great stories of how your club is helping your community. A visitor to your website should immediately be able to understand your club’s service priorities. Then they need to know why and how to get involved. That is all you need on a landing page. That page is really valuable real estate. For anyone searching online for your club, it’s their first impression. And first impressions count.

 

According to web marketing agency Tribute Media, you have seven seconds to convey what your club is about, capture the visitor’s interest, and prompt them to take action. They shouldn’t have to search for anything – it should be neatly laid out in front of them. As for fellow Rotarians, from your own or other clubs, who are looking for information about when you next meet or what that last bulletin covered, these things can all go on a different page. Just add hyperlinks to the stuff Rotarians need down the bottom somewhere. Put the links to stuff your non-Rotarian visitors will want very prominently near the top. These are things like “What is Rotary?”, “Volunteer” and “Contact Us”. That’s your front page. Its prime objective is to get non-Rotarians to engage. We want to prompt them to ask more questions, in a non-threatening way. Whilst the long game is about more members, the short game should be more about informing and encouraging. Some people think a "Join Us" or "Become a Member" button is a good idea. But I think first time visitors could be a little reticent to click on one of these.  My preferred option would be "Volunteer" or "Get involved". These words don't elicit the same level of obligation, and this minor change can make a huge difference. 

Your club website needs a simple and easy-to-remember URL. That’s the bit that goes after the “www”. A simple test is what I call the bumper sticker test. The following link has been slightly modified so as not to embarrass the club in question, but it is otherwise a real club website.

"https://portal.clubrunner.ca/12652" 

Would you put that on a bumper sticker? I would hope not. But this is my own club website: 

"www.seafordrotary.org.au" 

Unlike the previous URL, this one requires no explanation and is easy to remember. 

Your website should also be optimised so it can easily be found by search engines. Check out the video below about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). There are plenty of articles about how to do this online, but this video explains it in plain English. Your website host should be able to help also. Is your page mobile and device friendly, or does it only work well on a PC? Also questions your hosting provider can help you with.

Remember, we cannot take it for granted that the people who we want to join us know that we exist. You can't continue to live in separate worlds, like penguins and polar bears. Be on the lookout for Part 2, where I'll give my two bobs' worth on Facebook.

Are they biting?

My regular followers will know by now that the majority of my Rotary efforts over the last couple of years have been channelled into getting a new Rotary Club up and running. 

The Rotary Club of Seaford, which chartered in November last year is the first new club in District 9520 in around ten years, so it’s reasonable to say that a recruitment campaign of this scale has not been attempted in our district for a long time. 

The last club to charter in our district involved a large number of members from an existing club jumping ship. This was never going to be the case for Seaford, so today I want to share a few insights from the process of finding the 20 charter members we needed.

My team tried things that I was convinced would work, without success. But we also had success in areas I really wasn’t expecting. So, either I got part of the process wrong, or we need to accept that the volunteer recruiting landscape has changed. Or both.

I’ve done some marketing campaigns in my time, including the mind numbing work of preparing mailing lists, for myself and as a consultant to other businesses. I figured if I spent some time preparing a mailing list of businesses in the Seaford region, we would soon be able to launch a successful recruitment campaign. It took a lot of work, but I managed get together a list of over 700 businesses in the region. We had a team stuffing envelopes for hours. Massive effort, massive expense, ZERO results. I got the expected percentage of envelopes back marked “return to sender”, but was genuinely disappointed that we didn’t receive one email, one phone call, one person from that list at our information day. Even a one percent response would have meant seven calls. Whilst most were posted, teams of volunteers also approached business owners in major shopping centres. Zero, zip, nada, bupkis!

What did we learn from this? Was the flier and invite not attractive enough? Of course that is possible. Mind you the flier I created for this club has since been copied by another three clubs (not that that’s a guarantee of success). Did the envelope not make it to the right person in the business? That’s possible too. What I feel is most likely, is that for most business owners, commitment to a service club is just not a priority, and it wouldn’t matter how glossy the brochure was. We need to accept that sometimes it’s not about the bait – we’re just fishing in the wrong place.

A few years ago I conducted a membership survey across our district, and one of the questions I asked was in relation to members’ vocations, but it wasn’t about classification. I posed the question of employment status primarily in an effort to give us some indications as to where we should target our recruitment efforts, but also to dispel a few myths.

Whilst I stress these statistics only represent District 9520, I would imagine surveys across the rest of the country would reveal similar statistics. One of those myths is that Rotary is an organisation of CEOs and powerful business people. The statistics would suggest in fact that we are an organisation of retirees. Many of those powerful business people and leaders of industry ARE still in Rotary, it’s just that a lot are now in their 70s and 80s and retired. I am glad they are still with us, because they can provide valuable mentoring and life lessons to us “youngins”.

What the statistics are pointing out very clearly is that the board room is no longer interested in Rotary, and the shop floor is taking over. I recently ran a regional membership seminar and was approached by a well-respected PDG who fondly recounted the days where the local clubs were populated by the local business elite, and hoped those days would return. It is still the case in some countries and I guess even some clubs here in Australia, but I have my doubts those "glory days" will return. Our catch 22 is that clubs need to be populated with well-connected business leaders to attract more well connected business leaders. They once were, but I fear we are now reaping a barren crop because of poor sewing twenty odd years ago.

So what about Seaford’s recruiting successes? Advertising in community newsletters/newspapers was quite fruitful for us, and our website brought in a number of members. It seems as plain as the nose on your face, but a website that clearly explains what your club does, in non-Rotarian language with easy to find contact details will reap rewards. Why some clubs just don't get this is beyond me. Keep an eye out for my next blog which will be about our digital presence. Being visible in the community is also very important, and we always had fliers to hand out at every event.

At the very beginning of this journey, I had conversations with our local state and federal MPs and also representatives of council, who gave me some great ideas but also some other groups to contact – and these contacts proved to be very fruitful. One such group was a representative body of local community support organisations, where I met with domestic violence workers, church outreach providers, employment and career counsellors, community centres, neighbourhood watch, school support staff and educators, homelessness advocates, social workers, welfare agents – the list goes on. Whilst my original mission was to use these connections to spread the word about Rotary, and hopefully attract some potential members, what I soon discovered was that these connections were at the very coal face of the region’s challenges. For many of them, their day-to-day experience was with those who had fallen through society’s cracks.

Of the first 23 people to join the club, 13 are from vocations I would describe as “carers, supporters, teachers, nurturers”. As a retailer, I am in a group perhaps more easily recognised on a traditional Rotary classification checklist. But that former group brings us something very special. How many times do you hear of Rotary clubs struggling to find worthwhile local projects? We seemingly have no trouble addressing desperate needs in developing countries, and I will always advocate for this sort of work. But clubs that are most active in their own communities are clubs which are likely to thrive. When a good proportion of your members spend their days facing the community’s challenges, it’s a lot easier for your club to address your community’s challenges. 

These people are a good fit for Rotary. They are great networkers and are full of ideas, but they are often overlooked for membership. They're attracted to what we do, and attraction is always going to be easier than recruitment. 

I’m not suggesting we should give up on the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, but maybe we should spend a bit more time casting our lines where the fish are biting. 

Not all Nightmares are in the Kitchen

I’ve just watched an episode of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Rotary. 

If you’re not familiar with the show, each episode sees British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay troubleshooting a failing restaurant with a view to turning around the establishment in just one week. I used to watch the show a lot, but hadn’t seen it for a while. As a former owner-operator of a catering business, the show holds a special interest to me, as I can relate to some of the challenges these restaurateurs are faced with.

Ramsay owns dozens of award winning restaurants and clearly knows his stuff, but he is a volatile and somewhat polarising character who calls it as he sees it, usually with a barrage of F-bombs thrown in. He inevitably manages to implement considerable changes and turns these restaurants around.

By now some of my regular readers will have worked out where I’m going with this blog, but I’ll persevere with the Kitchen Nightmares script for a few more paragraphs.

The episode I just watched followed a familiar pattern where a couple with no hospitality experience had bought a pub and before they knew it they were drowning in debt and stress. They had lost their house and were living in the hotel where they worked seven days a week. They employed knowledgeable chefs but wouldn’t allow them to alter the menu. They made customers wait for horrible food and wondered why the dining room was never full. One of the statistics Ramsay quoted was that 20 rural pubs were closing every month in the UK.

Ramsay faced stiff opposition from the owner, whose pride wouldn’t let him admit the errors of his ways. The staff were all ready to leave. Eventually Ramsay is able to take over the kitchen, comes up with a new menu, has the staff venturing into the surrounding neighbourhood promoting the new menu, fills the dining room, has an extremely successful night, and is able to show a profitable path forward for the establishment. 

In some episodes Ramsay also arranges for a makeover of the décor, changes signage or even the name of the establishment in an effort to make it more attractive. But despite seeing indisputable evidence of the success that change can bring, the stubborn owner wants to revert back to his old ways. It would appear failure is often a more comfortable option than change. Yes, that sentence will be repeated later on. It’s basically the same plot for every episode.

So, what does unattractive, regularly failing/closing organisations, bad food, empty rooms, poor promotion, disenchanted workers ready to leave, an inability to take on new ideas, poor leadership and a stubborn resistance to change have to do with Rotary, you may ask? OK, I’m kidding. No-one is asking that.

I’ll tell you another story, of a former club president and good friend of mine, the late John Angus. One of the things that in my mind made John a great leader was his capacity to ask why we did things the way we did. He wasn’t afraid to look for a better way. John had never been a fan of the top table in Rotary meetings. As president, he didn’t want to be separated from the rest of the members for the year, so he instructed the hotel to do away with the top table, and he sat at one of the tables with the rest of us. This didn’t go down well with some of our members who had watched their president sit at a head table for over 50 years. It wasn’t “the way we had always done it”. There were numerous vocal objections. Did it affect our capacity to raise funds or serve our community? Of course not, but it upset the status quo. John was battling cancer during his presidential year, and some weeks was unable to attend the meeting because of his illness or ongoing treatment. We could always tell upon arriving at the venue that John wasn’t there, because that head table was back. And of course ever since John’s presidential year concluded, the head table has been present.

Rotarians are by and large creatures of habit. It’s very much a human trait. We don’t like to be removed from our comfort zone. And that’s fine provided everything is going well. But when things start going pear shaped, we need to react. There are many very strong and successful restaurants that have a winning formula and you wouldn’t dream of changing them. Likewise many Rotary clubs are thriving and don’t need to change either. But this is not always the case, with many clubs teetering on extinction. I have always been critical of Rotarians’ general reluctance to change, but I feel it has become more than that in some cases. Bizarrely, it would appear for some that failure is a more comfortable option than change. I wonder if some of us really understand what “Service Above Self” means. Our obsession with maintaining the status quo even at the expense of our very survival is not putting service above self. It is the opposite, which is selfishness. 

My experience in chartering the Rotary Club of Seaford has taught me many things, but the most valuable lesson is this one: In most cases there are plenty of potential members out there, but we have to offer them a different version of Rotary. It is true that some of our rural clubs have ceased to exist largely due to external factors such as the local economy and population decline, and the potential members just aren't there, but this is not the main reason clubs are closing. A different version of Rotary is not just possible, but necessary if we want the organisation to last for another 20 years. 

So the episode finished, and it looked like the pub in question would survive, provided the staff could keep the owner from reverting back to his old habits. It then hit me that there was a glaring difference between the struggling establishments featured on Kitchen Nightmares and the struggling Rotary clubs I know of. The establishments on the show had asked for help.

If you build it, they will come.

I am delighted to announce that the Rotary Club of Seaford (SA) will charter on November 26. It’s the first new club in District 9520 in ten years, and over that period, we have lost another eight clubs, with one more voting to hand in their charter at the end of the year. So how does one create a new club from thin air in an environment of massive membership decline? The simple answer is a lot of hard work and a very different version of Rotary. A version that most Rotarians would barely recognise. A version that I have always wanted to build, with a view that they would come.

If you’ve read my blogs or seen me present on membership over the last 12 months or so, you are probably in no doubt as to my thoughts on Rotary meetings, but in case you’ve been lucky enough to escape them, I’ll get straight to the point. Our obsession with meetings is the single biggest issue we need to address, and while meetings remain at the centre of our Rotary universe, we will continue to lose relevance, and will continue to lose members. 

I am actually beginning to question what purpose they (meetings) serve. For the record, I have enjoyed the overwhelming majority of the estimated thousand or so that I have attended. I was inducted into Rotary at the age of 29, straight out of Rotaract, and attending weekly meetings is now so second nature to me that I can’t imagine my Tuesday nights without them. I actually enjoy attending weekly meetings, but I can clearly see that they are a barrier to many potential members.

I used to think we achieved quite a lot at our meetings, but meeting productivity has either dropped off over the last ten years, or my memory has. Maybe we never really achieved much. To be fair, my club has achieved extraordinary things, just not much of it at meetings. I can remember reasonably interesting guest speakers most weeks, I can remember a reasonably good meal most weeks, I can even remember enjoying the conversation with my fellow Rotarians most weeks, I just don’t remember doing a lot of work at meetings that has contributed to making the world a better place. It seems the one week of the month we hold our committee meetings (where we actually get some work done) is the worst attended. Despite all of that, I still enjoy being there, but I have to ask myself, “Is this the most productive use of my time as a volunteer?” I see the hole in my bank account that thirty bucks in meals, fines and raffles leaves fifty odd times a year too, and also wonder if it’s the most productive use of my hard earned.

And herein lies the problem. To be a Rotarian, you have to go to meetings. You don’t have to go to productive meetings, but you do have to go to meetings. And that can actually be really hard to sell. It’s not so hard to sell volunteering and helping people. It’s not so hard to sell being a member of a global network of humanitarians. It’s not hard at all to sell the friendships, the networking, the good times and the personal development. But meetings where nothing tangible transpires; that's the part of Rotary that really is hard to sell.

I've been in the membership game for a while, and I wish I had a buck for every person who has told me, “I am really keen to volunteer, I just don’t want to attend meetings.” So I’ve been on this quest for some time to try and shift some of our focus away from meetings, and towards service. We are a very meeting-centric organisation, with everything we do seemingly revolving around meetings. 

Despite the considerable watering down of attendance requirements, we are still expected to attend a certain percentage of them. A percentage that is actually getting harder to work out. If you’re interested in losing 20 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back in ways other than sitting through a boring speaker, have a look at our constitution and what it says about attendance. If you can make sense of all those complex equations and rules, you clearly need to get out more.

If Rotary manages to survive in Australia for another 30 years, that version of Rotary we will see in 2046 will be a very different version than the one we see now. And in order for that version to exist in 2046, we need to start changing our modus operandi right now. I made up my mind very early in the process that in order for the Rotary Club of Seaford to get up and running, it had to offer something very different. At a recent meeting we had seven people sign up on the spot to become charter members. It would have been eight, but for one of the group being unable to attend. It wasn’t my pretty face that convinced them to sign on the dotted line. Nor was it the venue where my voice was competing with a ukulele playoff. It was the version of Rotary we were offering.

So what is it that makes Seaford Rotary so different, and so attractive? I’m glad you asked. Firstly, and most importantly; only two meetings a month. The rules allow it now. The focus is on volunteering and doing stuff, not meetings. One meeting on a Thursday night, the other on a Sunday afternoon. The venue is also different for each meeting. Like the way the first four Rotarians did it. Ironically, when the Council on Legislation voted to implement greater meeting flexibility, no-one thought to make the corresponding changes to the paperwork one must fill out to charter a new club. Said paperwork doesn't allow for said flexibility. It only allows for weekly meetings in the same venue on the same day each week. Chuckle!

There are no guest speakers. The members just sit around and talk about what they need to do. There is brainstorming and planning at every meeting. Those who want a meal can pay for a meal. Those who just want a coffee or a coke can do that too. No sergeant, no fines, no toasting, no prayers, no singing, no raffles, no collars, no flags, no funny collection boxes. No classifications on dinner badges either. Just a first name. It’s amazing how productive and enjoyable a meeting can be, when you trim off all the fat. I can just about hear the hyperventilating of some Rotarians now who feel this is NOT Rotary! Well, guess what? This is what the future of Rotary may well look like. If Rotary in Australia makes it to 2046, it will look closer to this version than the current version.

It’s amazing how that simple change of cutting down to two meetings per month, and sticking to what’s productive can be so attractive. There is nothing more valuable to a Rotary club than the hours its members are prepared to give. So don’t waste them, use them effectively. Of course getting existing clubs to transition to this style will be nigh on impossible, and here’s the main reason why. It’s those less productive elements that many Rotarians seem to value the most. The weekly camaraderie amongst friends whilst being entertained by a guest speaker represents the essence of Rotary to many, and I am not at all unsympathetic to that view. But that’s not what will draw in the next generation of Rotarians.

I have learnt a hell of a lot from this journey. I have known all along that the way we do meetings is unattractive to many. But it’s taken me a lot longer to realise how attractive an alternative could be. I am now confident if you build a new style of Rotary, they will come.

The Problem with Wives

OK, I’ll admit it. I used that headline to get your attention. This blog is about gender stereotypes in Rotary. And just to clarify, I actually don’t have any problem with wives (the spouses of husbands). I remain constantly impressed with my wife! My problem is with some of our words and actions, conscious or otherwise, that are doing us damage. The word “wives” has stubbornly remained in the Rotary vernacular, and here is why I can’t stand it.

A short Rotary history lesson for those of you weren’t involved in Rotary prior to 1989 (or have forgotten). Until then, our constitution and bylaws stated that Rotary club membership was for males only. We cannot argue that the decision to remove the “male only” part of these documents was the right decision, albeit long overdue. Women have actually been serving alongside of us blokes in Rotary since the organisation began, but for the first 84 years they couldn’t officially join our ranks and call themselves Rotarians.

There was this unofficial nickname "Rotary Anns" often applied to the wife of a Rotarian, and even Rotary Ann clubs. That's a story that started in San Francisco circa 1914. It was apparently a term of endearment at the time, but I still keep hearing it well after women have been able to join as members and can't help but roll my eyes every time.

Those first few years after 1989 were challenging for some clubs, and many men left the organisation in protest. "Don't let the door hit your backside on the way out", I say! I tip my hat to those first brave women who ventured into the all-male domain and changed the organisation for the better. But sadly, 27 years later, some within our ranks are still having trouble coming to terms with it. I’m not talking about the few remaining clubs in the world that remain all male (I’m actually at a loss for words), but the language many Rotarians use.

Back to my gripe with the word “wives”. Before 1989, when all Rotarians were men, it was commonplace to refer to our significant others as wives. Most Rotarians were married, and therefore the term “wives” made sense. But why oh why, when women have been in Rotary for 27 years, do we still use this term “wives”?

Newsflash - We don’t all have wives. Most of us have partners, but we don’t all have wives. What do you reckon goes through the head of the average female Rotarian when someone makes an announcement about some event on the weekend and asks everyone to bring their wives? Please, please, please; the word is partners. This is not about political correctness, it’s about laziness. It’s about including those people in our clubs who aren’t married men.

And if that’s not bad enough, how well do you reckon this goes down? My club does a lot of catering. Sometimes for our club’s social functions, but often as fundraising for other groups. And every time a seventy-something male Rotarian gets up to talk about these upcoming events, and asks if the ladies can bring salads or make slices, I just want to hide under the table. I will often stand up and ask if it’s OK for the men to make slices too.

Now I don’t want to boast, but my vanilla slice (pictured) is very well known in Rotary circles. Of course, most of these geezers come from an age where the man's job was to bring home the bacon and the wife's job was to cook it. Whether we like it or not, that’s predominantly the way it was. It was that way with my parents when I grew up.

But hey, guess what? Times have changed. Women can be Rotarians and men can make slices. I run a business from home primarily so my kids can have a parent around, and my wife has a good career and brings home more bacon. And I’m always happy to cook more bacon.

Before we can bring our organisation into the 21st century, we need to bring our mindset into the 21st century. Come on guys, it's been 27 years since the best thing we ever did. Surely it's time to lose our medieval thinking and treat our female members as equals. The blokey jokes, comments and attitudes have long passed their use-by date.