(Continuation of an article from our last bulletin)
Rotary International is asking clubs to focus on four priority areas:
Membership, Service Projects, The Rotary Foundation, Public Relations
Membership and Public Relations each have their own discrete focus and should not be treated as one and the same within clubs and districts. Let’s look at how they differ.
Membership deals with strategies and action plans - It’s the process of gaining and retaining members.
· building actions plans for membership development and enhancement
· measuring performance
· developing and nurturing the club culture
Public Relations deals with attitudes, behaviours, branding, marketing, and how we appear to others - It’s dealing with perceptions of our organization and the value people associate with it.
· managing the overall communication effort - print, TV, radio, social media etc.
· all communications to Rotary International standards - consistency in branding and presentation
· interpreting and managing perceptions relating to the type and style of causes and events club(s) take on - putting a positive spin on all things related to Rotary
· interpreting and managing the tone of communications, behaviours and events, and the impact such may have on the perception of Rotarians and our brand within the wider community.
· getting good news stories into the public domain and onto My Rotary.
In Membership and Public Relations, we have two quite distinct and interrelated roles. Both are important. Each one focuses on a specific strategic priority as set out by Rotary International, one being membership growth and retention and the other brand recognition and awareness. Also, it is a given that overlap may occur. A Membership campaign, for example, may rely on Public Image support for effective and correct branding of communication material.
Both roles have an important place in clubs and districts as we seek to grow our membership and advance the good news stories involving Rotary.
Meet the Member
As it was discussed in the last meeting of the Membership Committee, and was later acknowledged in the last Club meeting, the concepts of fellowship and sense of belonging are very important for every club, especially E-clubs where we lack the human touch (at least in a traditional way).
The idea of “Meet the member” is to get to know a little bit about ourselves by inserting a small article (about 300 words) about one member’s life in each bulletin.
Each month I will contact one member at random and ask him/her for a short bio, update, or whatever he/she would like to share with the rest of the Club, and I will be keeping track of who has already participated.
I’ve decided to do it randomly to leave room for surprise.
