As the Rotary Club of Barossa Valley nears it's 60th Anniversary, the membership is still strong at just over 40. Like most clubs, the current members are aging and there is not a wave of younger members to see the club into the next era.
Most of the members are in their 60's and whilst they are a dedicated, knowledgeable, loyal, experienced and long term group of Rotarians, early retirement from work, travel, health issues and grandchildren tend to change their priorities. This is totally understandable and a trend that has become more pronounced in recent years.
Membership has become a priority at our club and we were quick to realise that the tried and trusted method of asking prospective members to meetings would not solve our short to medium term aim of survival over the next 10 years.
We needed to lower our average age and keep pushing it down.
Two years ago, we held our first Friends of Rotary information night at a local winery and each member was to provide names of prospective Friends that could be invited under the President's name. Almost 70 invites were sent.
The criteria that we placed on Friends was that the subs would be $25 per half year and that they attend a meeting a month and a service event each quarter.
We welcomed about 40 guests to a cocktail party with good finger food and wines, outlined the Friends program and gave a short introduction to Rotary.
After the follow-up about 12 people joined but 2 decided to become full members straight away.
A second Information session was held the next year, again with high standard hospitality and a very long list of female invitees. Our club has not been successful at attracting female members.
This time there was instant interest with people wanting to sign up on the night, about half of them were female.
Up until just recently we had 28 Friends and we have found that many attend meetings each week and crave to contribute to their community through our service work. We record the number of Friends attending each meeting as a benchmark and as a percentage of the overall attendance.
Last week we inducted 4 new members from our Friends and each one indicated in their induction speech that they would not have joined had it not been through the Friends program. The number of female members in our club doubled in one night and we have 4 very enthusiastic new Rotarians.
When the time is right, probably about 15 months after the last one, we will have another information session. This time we will invite the Friends to also put forward names for the invite list, ensuring that we reach a wider cross-section of prospective members.
For Further Information - Contact:
David West
wiechs@wiechs.com.au
Tanunda SA
08 85633004
0447633004