Steve Martin

MEMBERSHIP TEAM LEAD

For many years to come, Membership will remain Rotary’s number one internal priority. Our membership situation in these islands is still at critical levels and we have a great deal of work to do. This work is the responsibility of every member of every club and district.

We aim as a Specialist Adviser Team (SAT) to ensure that everyone knows exactly how they can grow Rotary in their communities and ensure that their current members are fully engaged. The good news is that we can and do recruit new members.

Our Rotary International President 2022/23, Jennifer Jones, asked us to ‘Imagine Rotary’ and was a truly inspirational leader. We were also very fortunate in Rotary GB&I to have had Vice President Nicki Scott as our Director.

Now operating as One Region One Rotary, our membership team meet and, as team leaders, Lesley Sulley and I worked together. Our goals for the year were set around the Rotary International Four-Point action plan:

• Increase our Impact
  
• Expand our Reach
  
• Increase participant Engagement
  
• Increase our Ability to Adapt
  

From a membership point of view, if we follow this action plan when we plan our own club activities for the year we can expect to be successful in our aim to grow membership in our clubs and districts.

A big change was adapting to interlinked Specialist Adviser Teams (SAT) as opposed to Coordinator teams operating somewhat in silos. The teams include Membership, Public Image, Humanitarian Service, Rotary Foundation and Leadership Development. Working together has become an operational priority and demonstrated the real benefits of working as one team. As leaders, we have met regularly and worked together wherever possible to maximise the support for districts. Regularly visiting clusters and being on hand at meetings with continuity teams and district leads has proven to be very beneficial to all parties.

Individual SAT members have been meeting with their SAT leaders on a regular basis to ensure coordinated ongoing support is being delivered to all districts. Team members are regularly visiting district assemblies and council meetings and have also been presenting at conferences which has been very encouraging. Membership seminars were arranged around Rotary GB&I and the team are always at hand to assist with the organisation and delivery. The online facility is obviously very useful but many of these sessions have been face-to-face and it is felt that all parties find this beneficial.

Bi-monthly drop-in sessions, led by the SAT Lead, are still popular and they are always an action-packed hour-long session where there is no agenda set. These sessions are just an open invitation to meet the SAT Lead and members and to ask any questions about membership, share any issues and, of course, some good news stories.

During the year, two membership campaigns were held where targets were set to be achieved in 100 days. On both occasions, these targets were met, and 1600 new members were brought into the organisation. This is a superb achievement and an indication of what we are capable of in terms of attraction.

We started the year with 36,164 members and finished with 34,428 members. A net loss of 1,736. That is 4.8% of our membership. The bigger picture shows that 3,605 joined us, but 5,341 left us.

This is a slower decline than last year, but it means we have lost over 20% of our membership over the past five years. Even with the success of our membership campaigns and bringing new members to Rotary, that is too many.

As well as recruiting new members, focus must also be given to on the club experience to ensure that our prospective and current members are getting the full benefit of their Rotary membership.

In the second part of the year the focus turned to retention of those members. The message has been to focus on the club experience and to ensure that our prospective and current members are getting the full benefit of their Rotary experience. This involved encouraging them to look beyond the club experience and explore the numerous opportunities Rotary has to offer.

Districts continue to be encouraged to open new clubs; this is absolutely necessary to replace the clubs that are closing around Rotary GB&I. In 2022/23, we started 17 new clubs, including satellite clubs and district hubs, and 37 clubs were unfortunately terminated.

Districts are being encouraged to start new and innovative types of clubs as well as the ‘normal’ traditional style clubs. Every district should have a flexible club that is attractive to those who wish to do their Rotary in a different way. We also began work on chartering a Bipolar Rotary club this year - an excellent example of bringing people together who have a shared interest in a single cause. We have some excellent examples of flexibility across the board, but we should also remember that there is still very much a place for the `traditional Rotary club’ and the business networking type club, the latter being very popular in recent years.

Direct Membership is going from strength to strength and is led by Tim Mason. Lots of work is being done by Tim and the Rotary Support Centre to set up direct membership hubs in all our districts in Rotary GB&I. This will ensure direct members are at the heart of Rotary and serving their communities. It is only a matter of time before every district has a direct membership hub that is liaising directly with the district team.

In recent years, some excellent work has been done in terms of our approach to our values and behaviours as Rotarians. Whilst we examine our club culture and look at the health of our clubs, we must embrace equality, diversity and inclusion and ensure that our organisation is a welcome place for everyone.

With the vision of the North Star project on the horizon and a huge financial investment from Rotary International expected for these islands in terms of membership, we must ensure that we are all ready to receive these new members into our districts.

The whole Specialist Adviser Team will be working together to ensure that we are there to support our new clubs and our new members, but also to work with those experienced clubs and members to help them provide an irresistible club experience.