Has your club planned any social activity over December to February? This is a great opportunity to meet in a park with a neighbouring club(s) for an evening picnic. Last year our clubs event attracted six other clubs!

Article by PDG Brian Coffey, Assistant Rotary Coordinator

It is December, members are being asked for their second dues of the Rotary year, there are possibly those dealing with the question ‘Should I stay, or should I go?’

What is it that makes someone choose to stay? What are the benefits to a club in retaining and maintaining their members?

Some members will go, using a variety of reasons for the departure, whether they be real or an opportunity. Clubs need to think about how they operate, how they have adapted to the changing face of meetings and service or face the reality of perishing if they continue to think and operate and expect members to think in the same pre pandemic way, then they may find their club with an unsolvable problem.

Has your club planned any social activity over December to February? This is a great opportunity to meet in a park with a neighbouring club(s) for an evening picnic. Last year our clubs event attracted six other clubs!

We need to find what the members want and need, right down to the venue selection, space, vaccination concerns, social opportunity, and style of meeting. Some big questions and challenges, that quite frankly nearly 2 years on living with COVID, should have been constantly addressed for a club to meet its goals and objectives.

Encouraging frequent and honest communication with responses are the primary drivers of successful membership engagement.

Traffic light assessment is an effective tool in member engagement. We used it successfully in our club to indicate what activities and milestones the members wanted to achieve with what we were doing (Green), likewise the Red indicated those activities members wanted the club to stop doing, while orange addresses those activities that members would like to see us start or give more consideration to before proceeding. You would struggle to find a more vibrant club than ours.

The concept valued every members opinion. Friendships and membership have blossomed, as each member has been engaged in our success.

A worthwhile book to read about building effective and engaged teams is ‘Gung Ho’, by Ken Blanchard. The book has three simple and amazingly powerful cornerstones: worthwhile work driven by goals and values; putting workers in control of achieving the goal; and cheering each other on.

Young entrepreneur Jerry Jao is also worth looking up, he has several on line videos, but one focusses on customer retention, which we can interpret as member retention, and covers the cycle of customers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C1PnjUBGR8).

He offers the following core values for success:

• Inspire with passion.
• Persevere with determination.
• Collaborate with unity.
• Grow without bounds.
• Create with impact.
• Lead with character.

As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water …, at the end of the day, if you keep doing what you have always done, snap out of it! The world has changed! It is time to rethink what you are doing and how you could do it better. Engage with your members, your support network at District, Region and Zone level - use the collective power and knowledge to make 2022 a resolution.