08-01-2008

Rotary + Action

An impassioned Barry McConville cajoles, urges, explains, and leads from the front as he puts the case for full commitment to the formation of a new Rotaract club. Some of the points that he made in his presentation were:

• Keith Roffey and I drew up a plan, which aims to have an interest meeting in February.
• We need to work out what we need to do as a club before approaching young people.
• Rotaract began in 1968 in America, and began in Australia soon after.
• Rotaract is not doing well in Australia at the moment. We had about 34 clubs in the District in the 1980's, but we are now down to 3. I would like to get back to 4.
• This Club has established 3 Rotaract clubs previously, and had them disappear.
• Rotaract = Rotary + Action.
• Rotaract is community service for 18 - 30 year olds.
• The stepping stone between Interact and Rotary is Rotaract. If the stepping stone is missing, how can we move young people from Interact to Rotary?
• There are currently 7,380 Rotaract clubs worldwide, of which 1,909 are in India, and 65 (less than 1% of the total) are in Australia. We have about as many clubs as the Netherlands, Peru, or Columbia.
• Organising a Rotaract club can be one of the most rewarding things that a Rotary club can do.
• A new Rotaract club will bring new energy to its organising Rotary club, with the members working with Rotarians on many projects, and inspiring new ideas for service.
• The relationship between Rotary and Rotaract is one of inter-dependence, with each expecting visits to and from the other.
• The process has 7 steps:
  1. To identify in the Rotary club a team with which to work.
  2. Getting the team to excite and interest the Rotary club, and to obtain commitment to nominate potential members.
  3. Invite interested people to an information evening to find out more. The inviting is done through personal contact, ads in the local papers, and flyers. We then need to identify leaders and invite them to a core meeting. Other sources of membership are RYLA graduates, former Interactors, rebounded exchange students, uni students, children of Rotarians and their friends, and retired Guides and Rangers. So I throw out the challenge to all Rotary members to identify and provide the names of at least 2 people.
  4. The core meeting. We invite potential leaders to a very informal and social get-together.
  5. The admin phase. We apply for certification, which will cost us $50. The Rotaract executive board is elected, and the charter members adopt the standard constitution. We get the RI manuals for, and register, the new club.
  6. The information meeting where we sell the concept to other potential members.
  7. The formal charter meeting, to which we invite District Rotaractors, Rotarians, the District Governor, and the District Rotaract Representative.
• The important thing is personal contact, so can I plague you every week for 2 names of potential members?
• We need a minimum of 12, but I would like to start with 20.
• We are not limited to the local area from which to draw members.
• We will contact the University of Western Sydney (UWS) with words and photos for their internal distribution.

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Last changed: 03:21:22 04-10-2008