Today’s program was an opportunity for President Nate and Yours Truly to update members about what the board discussed at their time together on February 2nd at Gleaners during the Strategic Planning meeting. We first shared what our official Statement of Purpose as a club was: The Adrian Noon Rotary Club is a vibrant, fun, and action-oriented club that is growing its membership and financial capability with strong, committed members working toward improving the quality of life within our community and the world we serve.Next, we shared the top 3 goals the board agreed our club should be involved in moving forward. They are: Goal #1 - Increasing Membership & Engagement; Goal #2 - Increased Community Involvement; Goal #3 - Signature Project – 100th Club Anniversary (2021).
Members were then referred to a number of handouts they were given one of which was a sheet on which our club's "strengths and weaknesses" were listed along with "community opportunities and challenges". Another sheet that was passed around consisted of (1) ideas generated back in March of 2015 at what we called the Club Visioning meeting and facilitated as you’ll recall by our own DG Rick Caron and a couple of other District 6400 representatives and (2) important Hedke Award requirements that committees need to give thought to so that we can be serious competitors for that award in the coming years.
It is the hope of the board that all committees would be actively engaged, meet on a regular basis and report out to the full membership what they have accomplished and have planned for the future. President Nate challenged all committees to immediately identify programs they would like to run before the end of this Rotary year on June 30th and be able to report back to him before the next board meeting on March 8th as to what they were planning. That, of course, includes proposed budgets and timing, he added.
President Nate then addressed the "Committee Structure Sheet" and commented that he did not see every member’s name on it and encouraged anyone not on it to choose one or more they had a passion for and could serve on. We’d like 100% involvement! Total involvement, President Nate said, was the only way we will be able to have significant impact in our community and around the world. Members, he said, who cannot be as active as they would like should still put their names on the list as they would be valuable in simply being present at various club activities and/or events to show support.
Yours Truly mentioned that to insure that committees are functioning effectively, a process would be in place whereby each board member would be assigned a specific committee chair who could share with them what they were doing as a committee and that board member could report back to the full board on their progress.
Following the presentation, several questions and suggestions came up around the club’s specific brand, the timing of committee program development and execution. Another suggestion was to give focus and attention to skills training for young people coming into the job market and particularly the types of jobs we need in this state in order to keep moving forward.
What a great club we have! Thanks to each and every one for helping to make it one that allows us to live up to our Statement of Purpose as cited in the very first paragraph!!