The prospect of a district wide once a month to start with eClub business breakfast has been raised, open to Rotarian’s & non Rotarians. It occurs to me that this may be a way to get our district management on board & to identify the progressives within each terrestrial club, & to hone our social media skills.
I see this as an opportunity to really put Rotary back on the map within the voluntary & charitable sector. I would throw the invite out far & wide within that context. Maybe it should be an evening event to allow those present to stay as long as they wish. We could promote it as a ‘Rotary inspired think tank’.
I did actually do something not dissimilar on a small scale in Tewkesbury & I have to say a big thank you to Martin Greaves & David Houghton who were both very supportive, but I found it hard to maintain the momentum just in Tewkesbury.
If we throw the net wider it is likely that we might unleash a monster, get right back to the roots of Rotary & reinvigorate the business/service sector. I have attended other networking events, BNI etc. & frankly they appeal to a limited number & are all about self-interest ultimately. There is definitely room for something very different. I believe this eClub is ideally placed to initiate it.
I genuinely believe that we have it within our grasp to develop a new reputation for Rotary via our eClub as thee facilitator/coordinator between all sorts of bodies that will achieve a great deal more by working together. This is the age where we must discover a new spirit of cooperation. It’s in our nature, but has systematically been programmed out of us in favour of dog eat dog competitiveness as the way to be. The time is right as so many are tired of that mantra.
In fact maybe there is the potential for a new PR campaign where we play on the word Rotary so that we are seen as the hub. Some may wish to join that hub, but it is not essential if they simply wish to work with us without actually being at the centre.
Strap line anyone?.
I’ll start.
Rotary. At the centre because we have the heart.
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A district wide evening meeting coordinated by email etc is a good idea. I imagine it would have to move around the district to let everyone have a chance to participate. We keep being told about Costa Coffee as a good meeting place but the ones I know would not be big enough. The ones at Tesco have free car parking but are not open 24 hours despite the advertising, this is a longwinded way of saying venues are important and it might be quite a task to find the right ones. You may have ideas already of course.
I was a bit negative Costa Coffee are everywhere so advertising would be easy. Go for it
It is great to see some enthusiasm for the promotion of Rotary and hence the eclub across the District. Comments first and then a few questions. We must ensure that all of our activities to promote the club are joined up, and by this I mean that we give a consistent message about the club and what we are here for – in particular the membership action group and the PR action group must be engaged so we all pull in the same direction. Bristol Breakfast RC have set up a networking group which seemingly does what you are describing albeit in Bristol, there may be lessons to learn there, questions to ask and get them on board to support. Finally on the comments, we must be aware that there is a natural tension in the eclub about meeting physically versus us being an eclub and doing business online, we must ensure we do not alienate members by a physical event that is wrongly perceived to be us drifting from our core aim of Rotary on-line. Use of social media, webcasts etc can help to bridge the gap at a physical meeting but needs to be thought about upfront.
Questions – other than networking, what is the event for? You mention ‘reinvigorate the business/service sector’ but I don’t really get what this means and why this is relevant to the eclub, ‘reinvigorate’ for what purpose and how do we follow up on it? Why was it difficult to maintain the momentum in Tewkesbury? We need to ensure we just experience the same thing but on a larger scale if we don’t understand why it didn’t work locally.
Personally, I might struggle – I already do a lot of business networking in the evenings – and might find it difficult to get to more evening meetings – especially if they are somewhere far flung!
All for meeting up with other members though- we do need to have a physical awareness of each other before we can truly work together.
Simon is a keen supporter of the Transition Network, when I met him he suggested I might attend their conference on REconomy in London, I did do that yesterday. I agree with Simon this definitely is an organisation that has real synergy with Rotary and particularly with our our eClub might develop.
One of the workshops I attend was the Buzzbnk (positive people backing bright ideas) have a look at it’s website https://www.buzzbnk.org. While at the workshop I was thinking is this something we could work with? As it is very much helping to finance Social Enterprise and community development through the internet. Could the eClub encourage this social investment? Where money given for charitable purposes is loaned over and over again to help community businesses development, I think it could be a real winner as it is different and helps business in this country and in developing countries. Secondly it is about encouraging people to care for their communities, certainly a Rotary aspiration. Thirdly it is about ethical business.
As well as promoting Buzzbnk as an eClub I wondered if we might consider helping to sell the Buzzbnk Gift Tokens for Birthday, Christmas or other gifts to people who have enough already and don’t really want anything else. Well here is another way to use these gifts to support community development.
Do have a look at Buzzbnk and one of it’s projects Pants for Poverty at http://youtu.be/YuL8fdHF2-0 and see what you think. This is a great opportunity for us to help with Crowd Funding and doing something very different to normal Rotary projects.