Membership Corner - January 17, 2017
another series of Membership Workshops in march
By Tom Sturiale

During the last two weeks of March, we will conduct another series of Membership Workshops. These will be similar to the workshops conducted in October 2016. That is, there will be four regional locations - to minimize traveling - and each will consist of a facilitated table discussion aimed at eliciting membership ideas from each participant.
There, the similarity ends.
These workshops will be a case study in which the participants will be asked to develop an action plan aimed at significantly increasing the membership of an imaginary club having only a few members. Each table will have a facilitator and a note-taker. The workshops will begin with a short introduction, then continue with three 20-minute sessions, and conclude with a short presentation of each group’s action plan. As before, all the group plans will be distributed to all participants. The workshops are intended to provide participants with clear action steps which can be taken back to their clubs for implementation.
The attendees will be provided with a set of notes describing the club and town profiles and a list of community needs. A club history will describe some facts about the club, its successful past and current situation. A few details about the town and community will help to focus the discussion. Since we will be dealing with a hypothetical situation, the participants will be able to assume any set of facts that suits their analysis. The imagined club has fallen on hard times and it will be up to the participants to correct the situation and rebuild it. The three 20-minute table discussions will be aimed at defining the steps the club must take to develop a membership-improvement action plan.
For example, review the meeting venue, time, agenda, speakers, dues, meals, and club objectives and vision. What community needs would the members like to satisfy? What types of members would the club like to attract? How can the club research the sources of potential members? How will they develop a target list of potential members? How will they contact, introduce, vet, approve, induct, welcome, engage, educate and retain new members?
It is contemplated that these will be lively discussions involving strong opinions by all participants. You will be under a time pressure to produce good arguments at each session that can be summarized into a complete action plan for review during the fourth session - so the table facilitators will need to control and focus the discussions. Each table will select a spokesperson to present a summary of their action plan to whole group.
These will be fun and exciting exercises. Please plan on attending and contributing your Rotary-membership ideas.
Register Now
- To register for Tuesday, March 21 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Auburn, click here
- To register for Thursday, March 23 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Acton: click here
- To register for Tuesday, March 28 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Wellesley, click here
- To register for Thursday, March 30 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in West Boylston, click here
Tom Sturiale, chair of District 7910's Visioning Committee and vice chair of its Membership Committee, may be reached at tsturiale36@gmail.com.
December 2016 'Membership Corner' articles:
- December 5: Does your club’s strategy have an impact on membership?
- December 19 & 26: Improving effective membership efforts
- To read previous articles for Rotary 2016-2017, click here
Documents for October 2016 Membership Workshops, in PDF format:
To learn about the October 2016 Membership Workshops, click here.
For more information on Rotary memberships:
