Presidential Handover to David
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Handover 1
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Handover 2
President David Wilkinson - My Theme for the Year – M&M’s
My theme next Rotary Year is M and M’s. Tonight I have brought some M and Ms to help you reflect on my thoughts. Please help yourselves.
My first is a double M and M so have two.
My first is a double M and M so have two.
M – More and More
I would like us to have more and more of the same in term of fun meetings, fun visits and events, fun days out. We know we are the best club in the area in terms of fun. We must be proud of that, we have all made it as it is. Let's extend that. The shop was great fun. Santa in the Mall is great fun with the various children attending and the recent Whitley Lodge Fayre was great fun; even putting up the Shelterbox tent with Martin was fun. Camerons was fun, Nissan was fun, the Lindisfarne Cathedral visit and the coach trip was fun and so on...
I would like us to have more and more of the same in term of fun meetings, fun visits and events, fun days out. We know we are the best club in the area in terms of fun. We must be proud of that, we have all made it as it is. Let's extend that. The shop was great fun. Santa in the Mall is great fun with the various children attending and the recent Whitley Lodge Fayre was great fun; even putting up the Shelterbox tent with Martin was fun. Camerons was fun, Nissan was fun, the Lindisfarne Cathedral visit and the coach trip was fun and so on...
M is for Missing Out - I would say that anyone who does miss our events whether Club Visits or Fund Raisers is Missing Out. I have the perfect example of that with our esteemed treasurer who made his first club day out (to Camerons) earlier in June and realised what he had been missing all these years. We have made some wonderful trips and they will continue so why don’t you try and join one?
M is for Members - I have tried to give our Membership Committee more means and support for this next year. I would like the committee to be pro active in trying to arrange events to raise interest in the club and find new members. District has many excellent schemes for membership awareness and we could look to see if we can use or adapt those for ourselves.
We know that like many Rotary Clubs our average age is high. I would like an aim of mine to be to decrease that average. We are not going to manage to get the very young adults; we know these sort of clubs aren't super cool to many young people but there are many working people and recently retired people who are looking for something to fill a gap in their lives and haven't heard or thought of Rotary and Whitley Bay Rotary Club. Let's extend our fun club to others in the area with another batch of members this year. Can I suggest to the committee an Open Evening meeting where we can each target a potential member and perhaps have a buffet and presentations on what we do. Can each of us remember that person we met who was interested in what we do in some way; perhaps someone if a past member of Rotaract or Interact or Round Table or another Rotary Club and now has more time may be interested.
I believe there was suggestion of a Whitley Bay High School Interact Club last year. I would love to check if that is still a live opportunity or could be. Perhaps our Vocational Committee who have the contacts could help and certainly we have a link with the schools through the Cups scheme. That could give us an opportunity. As a past Rotaract President I would love to see a reincarnation of such a young persons' club in Whitley.
M is for Means
I have streamlined our committees a little this year to try and focus resources where essential. Our various event committees however cannot function properly unless we all try and give them the means to complete the project and raise the necessary funding which is one of our aims. That is the means of support to those who run the annual projects like the shop and Santa in the Mall, the dictionaries, the race night, the fireworks etc. Perhaps those in the club who have not been able to support events this past year could try and fit in a little time in this year. I would love to think we are able to get 50% of our members supporting each event in one way or another. The rotas are prepared well in advance. We just need a diary commitment to those dates and times. Many members take time away and once retired that is natural but not everyone is away all of the time. The help is absolutely essential. Those who have limiting physical restrictions can help with phone work and perhaps admin.
And we would be grateful for that help. We are not just a dinner club although we all enjoy our Tuesday nights with so much fun. But the club is much more and we need the means to reap that harvest.
M is for Media - Getting the message through
Richard has agreed to be our much needed PR and Publicity Officer. This is his forte. He has been so pro active with the website and photo opportunities this year that I would be a fool if I didn't try and take advantage of that. Rotary in itself has been weak with PR and certainly British Rotarians have not been pro active with Rotary's profile in the past. We have preferred to hide under a bush rather than pushing our benefits but that has changed in RI and RIBI and I think Richard is well placed to take advantage of that for us. Tore has also done a great job with the website and must be commended for his agreement to keep that updated. Not keeping a website up to date is like reading a 5 year old newspaper. This will all help us to get people interested in what we do. We are still relatively unknown to the man in the street. Many know the name of Rotary but nothing more.
Richard has agreed to be our much needed PR and Publicity Officer. This is his forte. He has been so pro active with the website and photo opportunities this year that I would be a fool if I didn't try and take advantage of that. Rotary in itself has been weak with PR and certainly British Rotarians have not been pro active with Rotary's profile in the past. We have preferred to hide under a bush rather than pushing our benefits but that has changed in RI and RIBI and I think Richard is well placed to take advantage of that for us. Tore has also done a great job with the website and must be commended for his agreement to keep that updated. Not keeping a website up to date is like reading a 5 year old newspaper. This will all help us to get people interested in what we do. We are still relatively unknown to the man in the street. Many know the name of Rotary but nothing more.
I hope my aims for the year can be translated into a good year for us all. Times are moving on with the economy and more people may be willing to look at charity work and what we do and become part of us. When I joined it was hyped that you must have acceptable attendance rates etc. or you wouldn’t qualify and may be asked to leave. Rotary appear to be taking a more realistic view with that and so are we. We all need to give support where we can and attendance at collections or committee meetings or promotions is all good rotarianism as well as reading for the cd's or collecting for the shop etc. I understand that we cannot all attend the Tuesday meetings due to family or business commitments. I have enjoyed being a member for more than 10 years and I want to continue, let’s have masses and multitudes of fun this year. I'm going to try to.
But finally with no M’s "Let’s think differently" and to quote a catch phrase the media use “Let’s think out of the box!”
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