Programme Week Commencing 23rd February 2012 – Happy Birthday Rotary

Last week we asked you to consider who influenced you when you were younger and wondered how Paul Harris faired in his early years. We hope some of you managed to visit the pages on the Rotary International site that gave you a brief glimpse into his life, it was fascinating to read about his early years, how he started Rotary and his later life. If you haven’t visited yet here again is the link Paul Harris’s Life. The initial format for the Rotary Club was for local professionals to meet for fellowship and collaboration, it was called Rotary as they rotated the meetings around different offices.

What we want to consider in this week’s programme is who do we influence? and how do we work together to make our District eClub one that emulates those initial early meetings?

Paul Harris started Rotary by inviting his professional colleagues to a meeting, where they could discuss what they do, what issues might confront them and how they might help each other. How can we ensure we are in the same position? Well, it is about developing our relationships with each other within our eClub and to do this we need to learn more about each other, how can we do that? Within the website ….

• Have you made sure your profile is up-to-date and gives your fellow Rotarians some idea of who you are, what you do, what is important to you, what interests you and where your skills and assets lie? The more you feel you can contribute to this pen picture the better it will be for others to get to know you.
• Have you changed your avatar to your picture, rather than a computer generated picture?
• When you visit the website do you update what’s been happening in your life or work or with your family? By doing this from week to week we are learning more about each other, including some of the problems or issues we face.
• If we know more about your business or skills, you never know it might help others put you in touch with other contacts that may be to your advantage.
• Have you joined the Forum that you have been asked to join and then contributed to the discussion/s within your Forum about what needs taking action on to help the eClub move forward?
• Finally, have you requested friendships with everyone on the website or accepted them where you’ve already been asked? This will enable better communications with each other as it opens the channels to allow messages and notifications to be sent and received between members.

My Job or My Life Talks

Part of a traditional Rotary Club when new members join is to have them speak in what is called ‘A my job talk’, these have become expanded to include other interesting parts of their lives. It would be good to include each of our members by giving this input to our weekly programmes – is there anyone who’d like to start us off please? Please let Tim know by sending a private message.

Other ideas that might help to influence our development

Operating an eClub is a very new concept in Rotary, so your influence in how we do things is really important, for instance one member suggested we might use Skype to have meetings with each other, why not, let’s try it. Another member is interested in what business contacts he can make through the eClub and wider in Rotary, should we have a business forum? Could we perhaps advertise our businesses on our News Update pages and give a donation to the eClub for doing so? If we work in the charity field, could the eClub members help in some of our projects? We will only know what we can do if we share this information or ideas with each other, then we can discuss, mould and develop whenever we feel this is a good way forward for our eClub. Another member feels it is important we meet face to face to get to know each other better, however we need to keep in mind, this is a Club for busy people, so not too many meetings please. There are however opportunities coming up which hopefully members will get involved with where possible and meet each other:

• Sunday 4th March – PRESIDENT’S AT HOME DROP IN – an informal opportunity to meet. Myself and Janice would like to invite our District 1100 eClub Members, Mentors and Partners to our home for an informal day to share ideas, meet each other, learn more about using the website and share a bite to eat. This is an open invitation for any of you who can make it, drop in anytime between 11.00 – 4.00.p.m. at 23 Britten Road, Redhouse, Swindon, SN25 2HQ
• Sunday 11th March – VIGORNIA GPS CHALLENGE – in aid of Worcester Breast Unit Campaign, details on the eClub Blog below.
• Wednesday 21st March – District 1100 Mini Convention in Cheltenham, see District Newsletter for details.
• Saturday 21st April – DISTRICT CONFERENCE in Bristol
• Sunday 22nd April – Festival of Rotary in Bristol – the Service Projects Forum is leading on this and we want this to be something the eClub takes part in and shows to both Rotarians and the Public that we are a very active Rotary Club.

Finally today 23rd February – Rotary Day, are you undertaking the challenge set last week? ‘Our challenge on Rotary Day is to mention to one person (a friend, work colleague, customer) ‘Rotary’, what it is and does, and why you’ve become a member of the District 1100 eClub.’ Let us all know how this went in the comments below, what was the reaction? At the beginning of this week we had some marvelous BBC News coverage about how Rotary has been working to help eradicate Polio, however if people have never heard of Rotary, the news coverage would have just passed them by, it is important that we get people ‘gossiping about Rotary’ so when they see Rotary collecting or doing things they know instantly who we are and what we do.

This series of programmes about establishing the foundations of our eClub, need very much for all the builders of ‘Rome’ (our members) to be using their skills, aspirations, ideas and talents to help ensure our development meets expectations and provides the opportunities that Paul Harris set out to achieve 107 years ago, fellowship and collaboration in a Club that makes a difference in what we do and how we influence others.

A great new video from Rotary International to celebrate what we are doing to eradicate Polio, yes Rotary is influencing the world, it is making a difference and now we must with everyone else see this project to the end….