Over the weekend I attended a number of plenary and breakout sessions as part of the national President Elect Development Seminar.
From the perspective of the role and the challenges as I seem them for our club there was a thought provoking presentation that challenged participants to consider where they were personally and where their club was in the Rotary Life Cycle. Where do you see our club? We are definitely not new, and I think well past the “Early Years” but in our prime? If you see us slipping round to the left and towards the Hospice what might we as a club and you as an individual do to rejuvenate the club?
While the mantra is often to “get more young members” one presenter argued with some conviction that clubs should definitely not look past attracting members who might well be near or in retirement but will still bring active service to the club. It might be that we can no longer wheel lots of concrete or spend a long day in the sun running activities for children but that does not mean we can’t provide a valuable service to our community and the wider world in other ways.
That of course leads into Rotary Foundation and the valuable contribution we can make to that but more about that later in the bulletin.
Chris Luxon, well known to our club, delivered a thoughtful, polished and very well received presentation, much of which will be familiar with our members who have heard Chris speak.
One thing that he did say that particularly resonated with me as I look ahead to the next Rotary year was, and paraphrasing, "when setting out on a leadership challenge, we always need to respect the past while also aiming to stimulate progress and change."