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‘CHANNEL YOUR TIME’
Article by ARC PDG Doug St Clair

I missed the recent Australia and New Zealand Rotary Conference in Christchurch but was able earlier
in the year to make the International Convention in Hamburg. The truth is, we can’t do everything
or be in more than one place at the same time and most of us have many things that are competing
with Rotary for our time and effort such as work, family, health and the list goes on.

The secret is to channel your time and effort into those things which are most important at the moment. Young
people seem to do this really well if you consider how they rush to a cause, collaborate with their mates and enjoy
things as they do them.
Maybe we need to take this more into consideration when we are critical of members who don’t seem to put the time
or effort into our club that they used to. What are their priorities at this time and what activities do we do that can
arouse their passion for Rotary. It may not just be attending a club meeting or a Bunnings BBQ.
So, I missed this conference but I had a real pleasure in attending, on the same weekend, the International Day of
Peace Lecture at St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane and representing Rotary at the award presentation to two real
Peace Builders within the local community. The lecture was sponsored by the United Nations Association of
Australia, Griffith University and our own Queensland University Rotary Peace Centre.
So, my passion at the moment is devoting my time to our current class of Peace Fellows who are part of one of the
greatest initiatives of the Rotary Foundation. What’s yours?

‘INCLUDE SANITY IN YOUR CLUBS HEALTH CHECK’
Article by ARC PDG Brian Coffey

Einstein is attribute to saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results’”. As businesspeople and community leaders, we seem content to
follow the mentality of "If it ain't broke, then don’t fix it!” If businesses adopted this attitude and did
not strive to make things better in a competitive world, where would we be?

While the reasons for members leaving Rotary are varied; a survey has shown that most members primarily join to
positively impact on the community and secondly for friendship. However, these reasons are reversed when asked
why they stay.

If so, why not focus on these areas through Club Service?
Effective clubs, have a multi-year effort, focussing primarily on membership satisfaction and adapting customs and
practices to satisfy their members' needs.
Club Service focuses on making clubs strong. A thriving club is anchored by strong relationships and an active
membership development plan. Through 3 simple actions of Club Service, clubs can:
1. focus on strengthening fellowship and ensuring the effective functioning of the club.
o refer to Club Committee Structure https://my.rotary.org/en/club-committee)
2. promote the development of acquaintance and the opportunity for service, and
o people don’t join Rotary for speakers or meals – social activity and service opportunity is the bond
3. conduct activities necessary to make the club function successfully and achieve its goals.
o Introduce entertaining variety into meetings – do your members really find the highlight of a meeting
is the ritual of a fine session

Clubs that run smoothly have more fun, more social interaction, more hands to help on projects and more minds to
develop new ideas. These actions will pay off in more community service, more international service, more
vocational service and more youth service. This is a healthy club, focussed on Club Service.

The quick way to turn this around is to have a 3, or 5-year plan and goals agreed upon by the members
(https://rcc.rotary.org/#/goals) to assist in having consistently good years – managed by a Board, not a 1-year
President.

The challenge is to prioritise Club Service in your clubs Health Check and adjust your clubs focus, after all, perhaps
if you are not attracting members, your model might be broken. https://my.rotary.org/en/document/rotary-club-
health-check, PDF file

Rotary on the Move November 2019 Page 5