Speakers stress membership growth and leadership

During the third plenary session at the International Assembly today, Past RI President Cliff Dochterman emphasized the need for incoming district governors to make membership growth a focal point in the upcoming year. "Membership in your district will not grow or blossom unless some very necessary steps are taken," he said. "Rotary's very survival depends upon it."

Dochterman outlined three areas in which clubs can expand membership:

* Seek new members for clubs
* Retain current members
* Sponsor new clubs in the community

Seek new members
New members are everywhere, Dochterman said. Potential members include Ambassadorial Scholars, Rotaractors, and Group Study Exchange team members. He also recommended that clubs set specific membership goals, such as one new member per month.

Retain current members
Keeping current club members is just as important as bringing in new ones, Dochterman said. A willingness to adapt is key. "The truth is, many of us in the older generations must be willing to change some of our thinking, provide a little more freedom in our regulations, and give a lot more consideration to the demands and expectations that business and professional executives face today," he said.

Sponsor new clubs
Dochterman encouraged the incoming district leaders to consider new types of Rotary clubs. "How about clubs with professionals under the age of 40? How about a new club in an ethnic or minority section of your community?" he asked. "Or a new club in a shopping mall, an airport, a high rise, or a large university campus?"

"Membership development is up to you," Dochterman concluded. "The bigger question: Are each of you up to the task? I think you are, so go for it!"

Leadership plan helps Rotary stay relevant
Earlier in the session, Leigh Higinbotham, past governor of District 5040 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, spoke about the importance for each club to build its own identity. The Club Leadership Plan is an essential tool for this, he said.

"It is vital to the stability, growth, and success of our organization," said Higinbotham. "It provides clubs with leadership techniques and an administrative structure to guide their activities."

The Club Leadership Plan steps are critical for effective Rotary clubs, he added. "A club may address these functions in any way it chooses. This flexibility allows the Club Leadership Plan to be implemented throughout the Rotary world."

The RI theme for President-elect Dong Kurn Lee's year, Make Dreams Real, will need strong clubs, Higinbotham said. "As district leaders, it is your role to effectively lead your clubs during the upcoming year. One sure way to support D.K. Lee's theme is to encourage the clubs in your district to implement this plan."

After RI President Wilfrid J. Wilkinson talked about RI President-elect Dong Kurn Lee's new emphases, Lee and his wife, Young, wave to the crowd of district governors-elect.

Emphases key to Lee's lofty challenge

The 2008-09 theme challenge to reduce the child mortality rate is a tall order, RI President Wilfrid J. Wilkinson told incoming district governors at the International Assembly yesterday, but by working within the framework of Rotary’s emphases set by RI President-elect Dong Kurn Lee, it's a goal worth achieving.

Guided by Lee's emphases of water, health and hunger, and literacy, Rotarians can help prevent needless deaths of children, Wilkinson said. “There is no question that this is something that Rotary is very capable of doing.”

Wilkinson told district governors-elect that the lack of safe water worldwide contributes to at least 6,000 preventable deaths of children under the age of five every day. It's why the first emphasis in 2008-09 will ask district leaders to encourage clubs to create water and sanitation projects.

"Every Rotary club should be proud of the work they do in this area, and every Rotary club should be involved in work in this area, directly or in partnership in other clubs," he said.

Health and hunger is the second emphasis of the upcoming Rotary year. Wilkinson cited bleak statistics of children dying from preventable diseases such as acute respiratory infection, diarrheal illnesses, and malaria. Prevention begins with knowledge, he said.
"All of us need to know what it is that kills children," said Wilkinson. "If we are to stop the deaths, we must understand the causes."

The third emphasis for 2008-09 is literacy "because many of the issues affecting children's health are issues of access, knowledge, and education," Wilkinson said. Rotarians can provide children education, a gift that only improves the future generations.

Reducing child mortality is a "monumental" task, Wilkinson told the audience, but one he believes the global network of Rotarians is uniquely capable of taking on. "We talk a lot in Rotary about the need to balance ambition and realism, our minds and our hearts, small projects with large ones. I can't think of any better example of how to do this well than President-elect Lee's theme and emphases for 2008-09."

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