An experiment with a purpose

What happens when a specialist Assistant Rotary Coordinator, a Rotary International Regional Membership Officer, two additional Assistant Rotary Coordinators, five District Membership Committee members and five District Governors come together as a team? A Rotary Roadshow!

By Assistant Rotary Coordinator PDG Andy Rajapakse
Rotary Zone 8, New Style Club Specialist

It was an experiment with a purpose. The purpose being to create a lasting impact on the urgent need to start new style, flexible Rotary clubs to attract newer demographics and rapidly grow Rotary in New Zealand.

The experiment involved running a series of small, interactive workshops in all five New Zealand districts to share my ‘Five-step Formula to Start a New Club’.

Held in August, the NZ Rotary Roadshow followed a string of the same workshops held throughout April and May in D9970 (Victoria), D9675 (Sydney), and D9510 (Adelaide).

And what a roller coaster it was! Weathering a freezing Kiwi winter, protecting ourselves from COVID-19 and an infectious flu, while travelling to 10 cities conducting 12 interactive workshops and engaging with over 300 Rotary leaders. The 39 interactive working groups came up with action plans to start 16 new style Rotary clubs, four new Rotaract clubs and reinvent 19 traditional Rotary clubs in New Zealand. A great outcome!

“Setting a goal is to grow or win once. Setting a process is to keep growing or winning all the time. In Rotary Zone 8, we need a continuous process of starting new clubs as a habit to keep membership growing to expand our reach.”
– Assistant Rotary Coordinator
PDG Andy Rajapakse

That’s plenty of leads for District Membership Chairs Elaine Mead, Ashwini Sadhu, Johnny Dryden, Gillian Jones, Marilyn Stevens and Nick Courtney, and Assistant Rotary Coordinators Tony Heyward and Andrew Hamilton to work on.

Regional Membership Officer Barbara Mifsud, who joined me on this tour, and I are happy with the goals we kicked and the process we set in motion. It was worth the 8,000 kilometres of travel in 15 days from Australia to New Zealand and then from the north to south and east to west of both islands of New Zealand, through five airports, taking seven flights and driving 1,500 kilometres. This is what people of action do.

So, what action was generated?

Created a positive and confident mindset to start new style clubs. A ‘Yes’ attitude.

Shared a scientific process to keep growing membership by starting new clubs.

Enhanced confidence to reinvent clubs to be relevant to our changing lifestyles.

Challenged ARCs, DMCs, DGs, DGsE and DGsN to work together on one purpose.

Empowered club and district leaders with new ways to attract members to Rotary.

Energised ARCs and DMCs to be proactive to grow Rotary in new ways.

Demonstrated how Regional Leaders and Staff can work together at club level.The NZ Roadshow was an initiative of dynamic District 9920 Governor Allan Smith, who is compiling a reference manual for New Zealand districts with all the action plans from the 12 workshops.

In the North Island, ARC Tony Heyward is planning to bring together the two ARCs in NZ with Zone 8 Rotary Coordinator Stephen Lamont, five DMCs and the five DGs, DGsE, DGsN to develop a National Membership Growth Strategy for New Zealand.

In District 9999, the South Island, DMC Nick Courtney and ARC Andrew Hamilton have set up a ‘District Membership Task Force’ to develop action plans from the workshop and set goals for the next three years to grow membership by 15 per cent by July 1, 2025. To do this, we set a process of appointing one team to start new style Rotary clubs and another to reinvent traditional clubs, because these strategies need different mindsets. In 90 days, I will join them to review the lead goals and how the processes worked.

Since the workshops, District 9920 has started two new style Rotary clubs.