Rotary Clubs are organised into districts which have their own officers working to support the member clubs, and to organise district wide projects.
After a reorganisation a few years ago, our club is now part of District 1070 and some of our members have expressed reservations about the way the district is run and how decisions are made. Possibly with some trepidation, our District Governor (DG), David Kendrick came to visit us last week and a number of members from The Rotary Club of Skegness joined us to hear what he had to say.
David confirmed the first priority was membership, which has halved in Great Britain and Ireland over the last 10 years. He went on to describe the need to balance tradition with new initiatives such as Impact and Enterprise Clubs and Direct Membership.
The club was also reminded that we share the responsibility of promoting our club within our community to raise it’s profile and attract new membership.
As Rotary’s long term goal of eradicating Polio from the planet draws ever closer, David talked about our Foundation’s new challenge to ensure everyone in the world has drinkable water by 2030. Whilst our club is proud to make significant contributions to Foundation every year, David advised overall donations have fallen in recent years.
Whilst membership might be down, perhaps we have quality over quantity as the District received a Rotary Citation for the first time in 25 years as a result of more than 50% of its constituent clubs (ours included) receiving a Citation themselves.
Finally, David addressed some of our concerns regarding procedures, our opportunities to guide decision-making and the need for long term planning and continuity. Happily, David, and it seemed the District as a whole, are sympathetic to our concerns.
Thanks to our DG and everyone else who joined the meeting.