Effective Clubs

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Effective Clubs
And

• Effective Members

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IS YOUR CLUB EFFECTIVE?   EFFECTIVE? What does
that mean?
Lets see if we can make some sense of the
question by looking at a few scenarios.
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Rotary was formed to develop friendship. SO has
it been effective for you?
How many friends do you have in Rotary and how
many friends have you put into Rotary?
If you dont answer a lot to both questions
maybe your Club is not effective from your
viewpoint.
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If you Club handed back its charter would it be
missed by anyone other than the
current members?
If not then maybe your Club is not effective.
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A small Club in a small community is often the
life-blood of that community. A big Club in a
big city might do much more and earn a lot more
money but does that make it more important?
Probably not. On that test Queenstown is more
effective than San Francisco, or Sydney or even
Hobart. The Rotary Club of Queenstown would be
severely missed on the West Coast if it ceased to
exist. Would your Club be missed?
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Imagine you had a make-up at your last meeting.
The visiting Rotarian mumbled his introduction
and sat alone. He was not invited into any group
so he had a drink on his own. At the end of the
meeting he said his farewells and left.
The next day you found out that it was the World
President visiting incognito.
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Would you be happy with the impression he would
have taken away or would you be embarrassed?
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Message to the Secretary
If you had a phone call tonight to advise that
the Prime Minister requested the right to address
your meeting, and would be accompanied by a
National TV crew to record his speech.
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How many members would you need to contact to
request improved dress standards or better
behaviour? Maybe you would suggest a couple have
a wash, or a shave.
Maybe you would make some calls to recommend that
some members should do a make-up somewhere else.
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If your Club was requested to front the Charities
and Not-for-Profit Commission to justify last
years financial documents, would you be
comfortable or would you need to do some
re-arranging of the details?
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BENCHMARKS FOR AN EFFECTIVE CLUB
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Is your Community growing or shrinking?

• Is your Membership growing or shrinking at the
  same rate?
• Does your Club represent a fair cross-section of
  your Communitys leaders and business people?
• When you ask a Leader in your Community to join
  Rotary is the expectation that they will say
  Yes or No?
• If the answer is No, Why?
• Is Membership viewed as a honour or an obligation?

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Does reducing standard to increase numbers make
your Club better or worse?

• Would you accept the local Brothel Madam?
• Well they did in WA
• Would you accept Chopper Reid?
• After all, he is a successful author.
• What about Brian Burke?
• He is an ex- Premier of WA
• When you are prepared to Create a
  Classification does that make it less likely
  that the upper echelon of business leaders in
  your Community will agree to join your Club?
• Is exclusivity a benefit or a liability?

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•      Ensure that your Club is Professionally run.
• v   Meeting Procedure.
• v   On time and with an Agenda
• v   Good guest speakers
• v   Good projects
• Monthly Board Meetings
• Agenda
• Accurate Reports
• Full Financials
• No waffle
•  
•  

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Welcoming and Friendly Ø     To
everybody but especially to Visitors. If you
want people to join your Club you had better make
them welcome. Your next guest speaker is
probably a potential member, your next visiting
Rotarian may have just moved to your area and is
looking for a Club to join.
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1.     Make a Difference   Ø     Community Ø    
Your region Ø     State Ø     National Ø    
International   Be recognized as honest, reliable
and there for the good of the world. Rotary
membership is not a vehicle for self-promotion.
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     Compassion  Make sure that your Club is
recognized for its compassion. Your budget is
irrelevant to the Australian economy.
What Rotary does, and the lives it affects is a
factor of how well it spends that money and how
much of its heart and soul it is prepared to give
to those who need it.
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 Molly Project The Club is no longer in
existence it simply faded away. Not long before
folding I did a make-up and it was obvious that
the small membership had accepted its fate and
the members were either leaving Rotary or looking
to move to other Clubs.   I asked them what they
were doing in their community, and the President
said with some resignation that they were only
doing the Molly Project.
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Molly lived alone very elderly but otherwise
very healthy. She had no family, did not receive
Meals on Wheels, or home nursing. The Club had a
roster of members to visit Molly and take her to
do her shopping. They picked her up to go to the
Doctor and all the other essentials in her
life.  
For Molly this would have made her life worth
living. So why apologize for this?
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San Francisco DG Visit
In 1999 or thereabouts the DG of San Francisco
area had told his Clubs that he wanted to see
some compassion for those who were doing it
tough.   At one of the larger Clubs the members
were met by a street person, dirty and in filthy
clothes, in a cardboard box at the door of the
venue. Obviously the worse for wear from his
bottle of grog, he was not the image the Club
wanted for the DG visit.
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Members requested he move away and offered to buy
him a meal elsewhere. He refused to go. The
requests became more strident until he stood up
and took off the coat, the dirty wig and the
false beard.
Yes, it was the District Governor! His speech
centred on the lack of compassion that he had
just witnessed.
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Christmas Carols   A club that visits a nursing
home at Xmas to sing Carols for residents spends
no money and earns no money but does a service
beyond anything that money can buy. The true
value of service is how much you give of
yourself.
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A long time ago Mark Twain said Rotary claims
to do great things, but normally they just do
lunch
Make sure he was not talking about your Club.