Membership Corner - January 11, 2016

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Membership Corner: How Is Visioning Working For Your Rotary Club?
 
By Tom Sturiale
 
During the second half of 2013, District 7910 began the Visioning Project. Several members were trained by experts in the process and they began to take several willing clubs through the visioning process. To date, about 17 clubs have gone through visioning and a few more are scheduled to complete the first phase of visioning in 2016.
 
Bill Domings of the Rotary Club of Westborough deserves special praise for his leadership of the visioning-team effort. The visioning process can be an extraordinary tool for clubs to manage their future. As we are well aware, all clubs undergo changes as the years go by.  Older, experienced members leave for many reasons, leadership turns over each year and younger members join who may have different ideas but with little knowledge of either Rotary International or the club’s history. 
 
How do we maintain a continual and consistent pursuit of RI and club objectives in an environment of change?  The visioning process helps to collect and align the ideas of club members into a consistent set of objectives regarding community projects, fundraising, membership, youth projects, international projects and Foundation objectives. It also help clubs determine priorities and rank order their objectives within the interest, scope and resource constraints of the club. And, very importantly, visioning helps to develop the club’s plans for the next two to three years. When a club has established a leadership steering committee and visioning objectives, it is more able to continue its growth objectives as its leadership and membership change from year to year.
 
How we have done during the first couple years of visioning? During interviews with 15 club presidents of clubs who have undergone visioning, it became very clear that all clubs regard the process as extremely beneficial. It did indeed help to focus the members on specific objectives and priorities and to provide a degree of consistency in effort from year to year. On the downside, it is also clear that the changes in annual leadership are still a factor in many clubs, leading to a loss of knowledge and interest in the objectives developed during the visioning process. Those clubs that had assigned a club-visioning champion progressed further than those that did not. Again, consistency ruled the day. The Visioning Committee has recognized that need and will assign a member of that committee to continue liaison with participating clubs.
 
Membership objectives developed during visioning were all very aggressive, with many clubs aiming to almost double their numbers. This remains an aggressive but attainable objective. It will, however, require a real commitment by clubs to follow through on their objectives of club improvement and membership development. Attracting new members is a multi-faceted objective. Clubs have to become attractive in terms of interesting meetings, good venues, interesting speakers, great community-development projects, fellowship and fun places to be.  Then, attracting new members will become easy.
 
Contact Bill Domings at wdomings@msn.com or 508-366-8545 and schedule a visioning meeting!
 
Please let me know any ideas, comments and stories about Membership you would like to share. E-mail me at tsturiale36@gmail.com.
 
Tom Sturiale is vice chair of District 7910's Membership Committee.
 
Here are the Membership Corner articles that were posted during December: