Maintaining flexibility as a club may prove to be valuable strategy to attract and retain members as we look forward to resuming a more “normal” meeting schedule sometime soon. Having the ability to engage members while still practicing social distancing as needed may become the new rule rather than the exception, so it’s never too soon to start gathering ideas on how you and your club might make things work.

• Meeting Online: If you’re already doing this (or not) consider keeping a virtual meeting in the mix once a month or so… Zoom is a great tool for this! You can also put together a “virtual meeting” for everyone to watch (at their convenience) and share via YouTube. Check out this example from the Rotary Club of Tucson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv0yPmVH8QM
• Encourage Prospective Members to Visit Online: An easy, no-strings-attached opportunity for someone to see what your club is all about.
• Change Your Meeting Schedule (by Not Meeting Every Week): Throw a socially distanced social event into the mix or even a virtual “happy hour.” Schedule a service activity instead of a meeting. Offer up some of the many online resources for members to explore during the “off weeks” for a virtual make-up.
  • Watch membership webinars and speeches from recent conventions and the International Assembly in the new Club Programming collection on Vimeo.
  • Discover the professional and personal development opportunities in the Learning Center. From Leading Change to Building Rotary’s Public Image, these online courses allow you to learn new skills from your home.
  • Encourage your members to exchange ideas in the Meeting Online learning topic in the Learning Center.

When you’re ready to add new members, don’t forget to invite DG Jim Squire to help with an online New Member Induction – no need to wait to make new members official!

And remember to look for more resources at rotary.org/membership!

Does Your Club Have a Membership Chair?

As the new Rotary year approaches, we will focus once again on Membership to attract, engage, and retain good Rotarians in our clubs. A key player in that process will be the Club Membership Chair, but many of our District clubs have yet to name a Rotarian to that position. If you have someone in mind, login to Rotary Club Central and assign them the role officially. If you don’t have anyone yet, start looking for that energetic go-getter in your club who is just waiting for you to ask him/her to help. We’ll all be in this together, but a Membership Chair will help lead the way. Looking forward to a great year!