It has been absolutely wonderful to see so many partners and guests at our recent meetings. The range of interesting social interactions that guests bring into the club creates a vibrant feel to the room. Naturally, someone has to be responsible for creating the meeting in the first place and that comes down to our Program Directors David Nutter and Gus Dominguez. These two gentlemen are trying hard to create and sell a weekly package that
- Deliver interesting meetings that can include non-members, guests and prospective members.
- Meets the weekly communication needs of Club Officials
- Creates opportunities for members to learn something new through speakers, experiences or learning
- Encourages interaction, planning and deliberation between groups of members to progress the activities and growth of the club
- Meets the expectations of the majority of attending members who enjoy the social side of Rotary.
- Supports our caterer and ensures the Club has a stable venue in which to conduct our meetings and business.
David and Gus are putting in some hard work to make the Club buzz, but our Rotary Club membership is a very tough crowd to please with 52% on most weeks deciding to do something else. Not much anyone can do about that except to say that Rotary can only be a driver in the community when Rotarians come together and talk about issues in the community.
If you don't come to Rotary, are you an effective Rotarian delivering help to the community?
The Board has bounced around many different scenarios to what a modern Rotary meeting should be. The standout scenario is what we have now. Good venue, good food, good facilities, good bar, good price, good atmosphere, good parking, rain, hail or shine. We have tried outside meetings (Arkoonah Park) but no one turns up. We have tried Zoom but no one turns up. We have tried different projects (End Trachoma packing, DIK, Clean Up Australia) but few people turn up.
I would love to think that everyone will agree that our meeting frequency and type is the most preferred by working Rotarians with little spare time. Busy people are the most productive people in my experience. Sure the meeting day and time may be a problem depending on their job, but it is the only time available for our venue.
Let's get out of the unproductive meeting discussion hole and start getting back into Rotary service and making a significant difference in our community. After all, that is why we are in Rotary. We have so much work on and so few available members to do it. If you are keen to see the Rotary Club of Berwick regain its position as a cornerstone of our community, find people who can help us build up our working groups. We don't need talkers, we just need doers. Our regular meetings are our grounding point, so push your support into the work being done by David and Gus and attend the meetings.
