Rotary District 5510

One of our students in the TriDistrict Leadership Academy submitted this as an assignment for the Membership course. He relates a compelling story about one club’s recent membership experience.

By Chuck Nordquist
District 5500

Last year as President of my club we experienced a growth rate second to none in our District. New members came to our club with great ease. We really did nothing to encourage it, they just came. When something like this happens you tend to get a bit arrogant and full of yourself. People kept asking me how we are doing this. Did we have a recruiting plan in place? Were we advertising ourselves in the greater Yuma area? Were we using some sort of plan laid out by Rotary International? The answer to all of these questions was no. But that didn’t seem right. There must have been a way we were proceeding that maybe we didn’t even know about. I discovered two things that might be taking place. Almost uniquely every new member had been a guest and actually attended several club meetings before making the choice to join. I called this “Sharing the Rotary experience”. They actually had a chance to participate on this basic level before making the decision. I made sure that I recognized them both before and during the meeting.

I also noticed that we were getting an inordinate number of younger people in the club. This intrigued me. We had always been known as the “old man’s club” so it was no shock we were getting younger members (we couldn’t get older), but what now? I found that a few of the younger members asked their friends to join because the old man thing was pretty boring. We had one twenty something sponsor three new members. It made me think about the new generations policies being put into place as we were growing.

So now I am an Assistant District Governor and the whole world has changed. I’m work with four different clubs and their various problems with membership. New prospects no longer gravitate to these clubs. Not that they aren’t good clubs, but you can see with casual observation what the problem is. So it came as a huge shock one day when I showed one of the club officers a potential membership package that was obtainable for a small fee from publications. They had never understood all of the materials that Rotary made available.

The Rotary International web site is both another problem and a god-send. Until this section of the Academy I had no idea how many layers of information existed on the web site. I think that Rotarians and non-members alike have been intimidated by the web site. I found that with careful guidance through these rough waters there was a gold mine of information. There is a publication that is also available on the web site called Rotary Basics. This is a very brief informational packet that should raise a few questions about Rotary. I think that this is the place where it all falls apart. Rotarians themselves need to be able to answer these questions. Rotarians need to educate themselves about the club they are a member of. It is critical that a prospective member understand that each Rotarian has made a commitment to the ideals of Rotary. If you haven’t, then why should they.

I strongly feel that experiencing Rotary on the club level creates an emotional bond that needs to be followed by answering the questions that everyone has. I believe that in order to make a strong life commitment to something, you must understand everything you can about it. Maybe that is a way to improve retention of members?

In talking with people outside of Rotary I found that they had never heard of the organization and what its goals are. I also found that these people had a very narrow world view. In our online academy conversation we all discovered that it was not just members that we needed, but “quality” members. Members who understood what “Service Above Self” really meant. That Rotary is a social club, but with so much more attached.

This is the precise reason why I believe that prospective members need to attend a few meetings and actually work on a project side by side with other Rotarians to see what is being asked of them.

Delving into the resources at our disposal, seeing what RI and our districts have to offer and listening to Rotarians from all three Arizona districts sharing their perspective and experience, was by all means an eye-opening experience. The deeper you delve, and the more questions you ask help refine where you want to go with Rotary.