Changeover - The start of my plan.

My changeover celebration was held on June 28th, 2017. I went for a Cocktail-style evening rather than the traditional Sit-down dinner as my main goal for this year is to get current Rotarians to see that the old traditions are holding our club back. The way things have always been done is a road block for many prospective new members and without new members, I fear we will not have a Rotary Club in this town in a decade. That's the scary truth. The average age of Rotarians in our club is 60. This in itself is not too bad, as Rotary Clubs go (although that is not a great benchmark to set our standards by!) but check out this graphic: 
Look at the size of the purple and blue wedges and trust me, the orange (unreported) wedge, if it were reported, does not make this graph look younger! There are 2 of us, in the aqua wedge, that are currently making the rest of the club seem much younger than reality.
But it is not all doom and gloom. Here is the gender balance graphic:
Not perfect but not too shabby either!

So if I am to help steer this Club in a more youthful direction, I believe we have a bit of a conundrum. A chicken before egg style conundrum. Younger people are not inspired to join Rotary while we conduct our meetings in the traditional style. Can we A) change the style of meeting to attract them in or B) coerce them in and then by sheer force of numbers, hold the traditionalists to ransom? When put like that... it's no longer a conundrum to me. A) is easy, B) is not.



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