My year as Rotary President - The good, the bad and the ugly

This was the plan for meetings - Committee meetings - Roll-about-comedy - Christmas in winter - Helene Jager, Austrian Exchange Student. Week 6 - 82.05% attendance - A certain director was heard to say "Didn't we do this already, we've done our plan for the year". Well yes, we did do this, and we will do it another 10 times! So you have a plan for the year, now it is time for your committee to implement it! Then send a report to the Board so that they know what the Club Committees are doing. BTW in August, the Board received exactly 0 directors reports, with the exception of the President (who is on the Board), the Treasurer (who is on the Board), and the Satellite Club (who also has a rep on the Board)! GO TEAM!!! What a proactive Club we are!!! Week 7 - 38.46% attendance - The first of the non-Monday meetings. Doesn't that attendance figure tell a story! It was the nastiest, coldest evening of the year but no-one knew that when they were supposed to be pre...

This was the plan for meetings: Club assembly - Committee Meetings - Whist with a Twist - Italian Immersion Dinner - Navigating Technology. Week 1 - 92.86% attendance- Club assembly is the usual way to start the year. Nothing controversial in that - we outline a plan for the year to come. Right? My changes here were getting rid of the Head Table and the Sergeant at Arms. I didn't really think that would be overly controversial - I thought we would all enjoy sitting on an equal footing and we would behave as adults and listen when someone stood to speak. No need for bells or Chains of Office as though we are Pavlov's dogs. But it turns out that we have members in our Club who have difficulty being respectful towards their president or any other speaker, if they are not sitting at a head table with a sergeant to ring a bell and order the masses down below to be quiet and listen. My FIRST big lesson. Running a Rotary meeting is akin to teaching a primary school class. Recogn...

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...

The Stanthorpe Rotary Club was chartered in 1953. My Great Uncle, Dick Harslett was a charter member. A few years later my Grandfather Bob Harslett was inducted as a member. I understand that there was a bit of tweaking required as the Rotary International rules at the time stated that clubs were only allowed one member in any given vocational classification. Dick and Bob were both farmers. In fact, a large majority of Granite Belt residents were farmers. Creative job titles were required so that they could both serve their community as Rotarians. Rotary has lots of rules like this. To me, some make sense, some don't. Some traditions were followed in the past that have changed, some haven't... some need to change! I am now almost three months into my term as President of the Stanthorpe Rotary Club. I am 36, I am a woman. This makes me unique in the history of leadership of our Club. I am not the youngest president, I am not the first female president but I am the youngest, ...