District Governor Don Ripper was a visitor to the Meeting this week.
Prior to the Meeting he met with several Board Members, including President David, to hear what the Drouin Club had planned for the coming Rotary Year.
He told those assembled that this was his very first Club visit and it was a pleasure to be at Drouin where he had always been welcomed amongst a fraternity that had an excellent feel of harmony and great fun.
In addressing the full meeting Governor Don’s major theme was one of the need for regeneration of Rotary as an organisation.
He emphasised this point by quoting figures such as over the past decade Rotary world-wide had recruited 1.2 million new members and had a total membership currently of the same number. Whilst this would seem that the Organisation was holding the line, the fact that at the same time the average age of the membership had increased by 2.5 years to 70, obviously this was unsustainable for the future of Rotary.
Added to this was the concern that of the 36,000+ Clubs more than 14,000 had a membership of less than 25 and 3,000 were below 15.
To counter this, District 9820 would be committing considerable resources over the coming year to increase membership and to membership retention.
He acknowledged that Drouin did not fit into these facts as it was clearly one of the District’s strongest Clubs in terms of membership and work. However no Club could afford to be complacent and he made some suggestions about how Club’s should do an audit of its membership profile.
He felt Clubs should consider one of the original tenets of Rotary being based on vocational membership. Clubs should audit the businesses and professional work places in their community and look at any gaps that may appear in their own profile when put against this audit.
He also felt that Clubs needed to be more representative of the diversity in their community and look at recruiting from those diverse groups that were under represented in the Club’s profile.
His warning being that if Rotary did not represent diversity in the community it was in danger of becoming irrelevant to its community.
Governor Don also asked the thought provoking question of all he met “When did you become a Rotarian?”
His point being that sadly some Clubs had members who did not embrace the foundations of service and there were many in the community who were not members but did live and contribute in the manner of Service Above Self, these men and women were in fact living the ideals of a Rotarian. They should be sought out and also encouraged to contribute through Rotary and to this end promotion and Public Relations would be an important strategy going forward and handling this for the District would be our very own, Secretary Tim.
DG Don also outlined the District Project which would be the elimination of trachoma. A Project that would run over 3 years and had been agreed to by all 21 District Governors with the aim of eliminating trachoma, which is particular prevalent in the Indigenous Community particularly in the Northern Territory.
It is a disease that is easily prevented and treated relatively inexpensively and the aim of 20/20 by 20/20 is very achievable with the allocation of financial resources and professionals working in the field.
In conclusion, he encouraged all members to take advantage of the many leadership and education programs that the District would run in the future. They were a way to learn more about Rotary and provide Rotarians the opportunity to hone their skills and to gain a personal focus to their Rotary life.
Judy Ripper also spoke of her "Partner's Project" for the year. She said that in caring for ourselves and our families we needed to also care for and nurture our environment, they in fact went hand in hand. To this end, her project would be to plant at least one tree for every District 9820 Rotarian, which was reflecting the plans of our Australian International President Ian Riseley.
Individual Clubs may undertake their own plan to achieve this, or it could be a project run in conjunction with local Councils or other organisations such as schools, Landcare groups etc.
She has offered her help, guidance and support to any Club who took up this project and was readily contactable to assist.
President David thanked both DG Don and Judy for coming along and for their thought provoking presentations and ideas.