WHERE IS RC DAMANSARA WEST GOING?

I was a great pleasure to be invited to talk to the Rotarians of this club yesterday evening. Eventhough the group was small, these were very committed and dedicated Rotarians and it felt good to be in the company of such committed individuals. I think that President Vani is going to have a great year with such good support coming from the likes of Charter President PP Ken, PP Renu, PP Nikhil, PP Kasim and IPP Rassa (present in spirit and love for the club). I think that in PE Lin we have a great membership development Chair and I am sure that in the coming year the club will focus not in bringing more members - BUT in bringing in more ROTARIANS - individuals imbued with the same passion for service in saw in that meeting room last night.

Here is a checklist of some of the reasons why we fail to grow our membership. Please feel free to provide suggestions as to how to improve this checklist.

• Membership dues too costly – Rotary should be an organization where the focus is on service to the community. We should keep our membership dues to a minimum and encourage more members to join and participate in the service aspect of Rotary.
• Pressures for donations – Every Rotarian contributes in his or her own way. We must believe firmly in this and respect every Rotarian for whatever contribution they make to the club.
• Poor quality meals – whether the club meets for lunch, tea or dinner, every effort should be made to ensure that good, quality food is served.
• Open communication is the key to keeping members involved. The club leadership must communicate regularly with the members and keep the channels of communication open, to hear and address grievances.
• Existence of cliques – this is one of the major factors that will regress a club and prevent it from growing.
• Hurt feelings – personality conflicts. We must always remember the reason we joined Rotary – to be of service to others. Yet over time we forget this and allow our egos to get in the way of the greater good that we can do. This is especially true of some Past Presidents who have great difficulty not saying – “During my time!”
• Poor meeting management – if the meeting is uninteresting, existing members will leave and new people won’t join. An interesting regular meeting is the engine of membership growth. Presidents should keep their announcements short and not bore the attendees with long speeches. Get an interesting speaker. Try alternatives to speakers, a game of ‘charades’ or a ‘quiz’ or a joke telling competition. Variety is the spice of life.
• Take time to understand the business or family time pressure that your fellow Rotarians are under. We must be supportive of each other and make the fellowship of Rotary real.
• Poor, weak and incorrect Rotary information – we must take time to share Rotary information every week. There must be an active effort to share the Rotary’s programme with all Rotarians – there are many Rotarians who don’t know what the global Rotary effort is about and that they are a member of a global family of like minded individuals.

Like RC Damansara West, we too need to look to the future with optimism, knowing that the spirit of volunteerism is alive and well and all we need to do is to seek it out and find individuals like us. Sometimes just limiting the search to people we know is rather complacent. There is a whole community of like minded individuals out there - WE NEED TO SPREAD THE ROTARY MESSAGE.

REACH OUT to your community, ask the professionals and business people in your area that you have yet to meet to attend your club meetings. Better still get them involved in your projects. They won't join immediately, but at least they know your there and when they are ready - THEY WILL COME.

Allow me to share a story about a BLIND MAN with you today.

One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a sign by his feet, that read:   “I am blind, please help.”
A creative publicist was walking by the blind man and stopped to observe that the man only had a few coins in his hat. He put a few of his own coins in the hat, and without stopping to ask for permission, took the sign, turned it around, and wrote a new message. He then placed the sign by the feet of the blind man, and left.

Later that afternoon the creative publicist returned by the blind man and noticed that his hat was almost completely full of bills and coins. The blind man recognized his footsteps and asked if it was him who had changed his sign? He also wanted to know what the man wrote on it?“I just changed your message so people could relate to it.” He wished the man well, said goodbye, and went on his way.

The publicist replied:

The blind man didn’t know it, but his new sign now read:

“TODAY IS SPRING AND I CANNOT SEE IT”

The Moral of the Story:

1.     CHANGE YOUR STRATEGY WHEN THINGS AREN’T WORKING.

2.      HAVE FAITH THAT YOUR CHANGE WILL BE FOR THE BEST.

3.    AWAYS PUT A POSITIVE SPIN ON WHATEVER MESSAGE YOU ARE  COMMUNICATING 

WHERE IS RC DAMANSARA WEST GOING? TO HELP ALL THE PEOPLE THEY CAN THE BEST WAY THEY CAN!

GOD BLESS ROTARY AND ROTARIANS
PP DR SIVA ANANTHAN
MDR CHAIR 2011-2012