May 2010
Growing Rotary in the midst of a great recession By PDG Myles Golden I have been quite impressed with the clubs in our district that somehow found a way to grow their membership in the midst of the worse recession in over 40 years, now more commonly referred to as The Great Recession. In a year when unemployment is at a 40-year high and with over 7 million jobs lost since 2007, one would think that joining a Rotary club would not be a good investment. Yet we have clubs that have proved that theory wrong. The Clemson Club tied the Aiken Club with a net gain of 9 new members, both winning The Most New Members Award this past weekend at our annual District Conference in Greenville. (If you missed attending, I think you missed the best conference in the history of our district). Closing in with a “triple tie” for runner-up was Indian Land, Simpsonville and Union all with a net gain of 7 ne w members. The club that won The Highest Percentage of Growth Award was The Greenville Evening Club with a 24% increase in membership. Runner up to Greenville Evening was Indian Land with a 19% increase in membership. And taking 3rd place was Union with a 17% increase in membership. Only 17 clubs showed a net gain in membership from June 30, 2009 to date. Yet as a district we had a net gain of 10 new members as of April 30th. In other words, flat, as is with our Zone and with Rotary globally. So I guess flat is good in this economy. That’s what my financial advisor told me. So what’s with these clubs that are growing Rotary in the midst of The Great Recession? That’s a compelling question, so I decided to call a few club presidents and ask what they did to grow their clubs this year. Here are some of the comments: “We have fun. I think when a prospective member attends one of our meetings they realize that, not only do we do a lot in the community and the world at large, we have fun doing it.” Another club president said, “I think our key to having a great year was getting our new members involved with hands-on community work. We participated in building a house for Habitat for Humanity, visited a nursing home at Thanksgiving where we entertained the residents with games and simply sat and talked. The residents really loved it and our members got a lot of emotional dividends.” Another club president said “I think we do a good job of recruiting the best of the best community leaders. People are proud to be a member of our club. We are much diversified and we encourage young shinning stars in our community to join our club.“ In conclusion, I think these clubs “got it” when our 2009 – 2010 theme was introduced last year as our new District Governor , Georg Fletcher, took the reins of District 7750. “The Future of Rotary is in Your Hands.”
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District Governor George Fletcher 205 Rosebay Drive | Greenville, SC 29615 Send items for newsletter to Editor@rotary7750.org. |
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