Programme for week commencing 24th April, 2013
It has been quite a journey with our Click 4 Action eRotary and we thought this week there is an need to reflect on that journey, consider what there is still to do and start the planning process for the future. Back in 2011 Tim and Janice Mason returned from the Rotary International Convention in New Orleans – a WOW experience, 19,000 Rotarians gathered together to share what is happening around the world. Tim had been a Rotarian for many years, Janice had been a wife of a Rotarian, now she wanted to be one! So Janice decided she would join the new and pioneering eClubs, as her work prevented her from joining a traditional Rotary Club that meets in the working week, she joined the District 3710 eClub, Goa India. Tim wrote to the District and requested that he could explore forming the District 1100 eClub. Over the next 6 months Janice learnt by personal experience about eRotary, Tim started to recruit the required 25 new people to form the District 1100 eClub and in February 2012, 27 people wanted to join this new adventure and we were born.

Tim became our first President and Janice our Secretary, we were ‘riding along on the crest of the wave’ and in 2012 we achieved a lot of projects in our new endeavours (please visit the review of that year).

In 2013 Janice became President and Tim Secretary, new people joined us, in the early stages we had very few transferring Rotarians, so we were all learning about how Rotary works as well as trying to develop a new way of doing it. In our next year we had a number of transfers from traditional Rotary Clubs who could see the advantages of eRotary due to their circumstances changing, they had to adapt to a new way of doing things. Again in 2013 we’ve continued to build our membership and our activities.

There is still much to do, to review what we have achieved please visit our News Update pages and the Learning Curve. The context to our continued development can be understood more if you think of an old House, with solid foundations and structures, but there is a need to build modern extensions and alterations. Rotary a world-wide organisation that has been operating in 200 countries in the same way for 100 plus years and now eRotary is changing the ideas of meal time Clubs, to a network of Rotarians linked by the web. There are many who disbelieve this will work, although there is a growing number of Rotarians who are excited by this development and see its importance.

So in this review we celebrate 2 years of Rotary that has achieved much, but needs to develop more and continue to embrace change. Next month on the 15th May we will hold our Annual Meeting and President Janice can invite everyone to celebrate our achievements for 2013/14. Then on Thursday 26th June we will hold our Assembly when we will discuss and share our plans for 2014/15, President Sinead will be looking forward to her role from her new home in Ireland. You see already a real change is about to take affect in that the President and Secretary will no longer be so close to each other, we look forward to the learning and challenges this will bring. Our membership has expanded and our activities need to change to suit the members, which has always been about turning their community and service passions into what we want to do.

So as we prepare ourselves for the new coming Rotary Year 2014/15 we ask everyone to consider the following:

• How can we continue to improve our communication with each other and build a working relationship, through our website, social media, Skype or video conferencing or even that old tool the telephone?
• How can we continue to get others to understand that eRotary is still evolving, this is in the backdrop of building new ways of doing things based on concepts and rules akin to weekly meal time meetings?
• How to we embrace getting new people involved in Rotary, we as you know are piloting Rotary Community Corps, Associate and Family Membership.
• How do we encourage younger people to join Rotary, can we take forward the idea of Rotaract online in the Rotaract Hub?
• In 2014/15 as part of the District 1100 Membership Strategy Plan it is hoped that every area will set up an eHub, how can we help to achieve this?

Lots to do then as we start to think of the new Rotary Year 2014/15 which will commence on the 1st July, lots of ‘How do we’s…’ and we need you our members to help us create the plan together.