Dear District 6630 fellow Rotarians and Friends:
In our effort to develop membership through new and innovative ways we have reviewed a number of topics. My December 2019 article detailed some of the Strategic Planning Committee’s work in realigning clusters to deal with the significant changes resulting from the decline in membership. This month I would like to take a more in depth look at what the Strategic Planning Committee is doing to help grow membership and how that is being coordinated with Membership Committee activities.
The Strategic Planning Committee’s current agenda was set nearly two years ago in a collaborative process involving Past District Governor Beverly Ghent-Skrzynski (then the current Governor), myself, Pat Myers, and John Bosco, among others. The Committee’s charge is three-fold. First, the Committee is to work on developing an overall Strategic Plan for District 6630 that coordinates with and accentuates the Rotary International Strategic Plan. This process is a slow one inasmuch as Rotary International is still rolling out its plan, and as recently as the Zone Conference in October, adequate details to move forward in a meaningful way were not yet available.
The second portion of the multi-year plan for the Strategic Planning Committee is the recently completed cluster realignment. As briefly mentioned last month, the third element of this long-term plan is analysis/survey/assessment of the District to look for places where new clubs can be started. The Committee continues to look at this from an innovative perspective, understanding that we now have multiple types of clubs that might come into existence including Satellite Clubs, Passport Clubs, and E-Clubs, as well as “traditional” clubs.
If you examine the relatively recent past you understand that quite a number of clubs have gone out of existence. Within the last 90 days we lost a club in the former Medina Cluster. In the past few years, we lost the Rotary Club of Cleveland East (terminated November 2015) and what was then known as the Rotary Club of Heights of Greater Cleveland (which closed in 2002). Of course, our District is not the only District dealing with these kinds of problems.
Fortunately, there have also been a number of successes. Recently District 6650, in a cooperative venture with District 6630, “re-chartered” the Hartville Club, as well as chartered the Green Club.
These changes create an opportunity and your Strategic Planning Committee, ably chaired by Past District Governor John Bosco, is looking at this question. The Committee will take a major step forward on February 8, 2020, when the Strategic Planning Committee holds a joint meeting with Jim McKee’s Membership Committee.
In a similar vein, the Membership Committee is working on setting up a separate meeting to begin serious efforts to implement the Zone Membership Initiative. This Zone Initiative, which is somewhat complex, is designed to have a dual focus. First, the Zone Initiative is designed to help individual clubs select three strategies to focus on gaining new members. Equally, and perhaps more important, it is designed to have individual clubs focus on three strategies to retain members. When you look at the District’s history, much like Rotary International’s history in the same time period, perhaps the most important part of our membership “challenge” is really a retention challenge.
I recently listened to John Hewko, Rotary International’s general secretary, describe the fact that the 2018 Rotary year saw a record number of new members joining Rotary worldwide. Unfortunately, 2018 also saw a new record set for the number of Rotarians who chose to leave, and that number exceeded our new membership gains. Many clubs in the District experience this same phenomenon. Thus, the Zone Initiative is a welcome program.
In addition to membership driven matters, several other significant developments are going on within the District. I will touch upon one this month and others in succeeding months. This month I will provide developments from the District’s Youth Protection Committee.
Rotary International recently adopted an anti-harassment policy. That policy was distributed to all clubs within the last 30 days. Our District was, in significant part, ahead of this policy. I have been chairing the committee and its members include Dana DeCapite (Hillcrest Sunrise), Past District Governor Beverly Ghent-Skrzynski, Bob Heydorn (Cuyahoga Falls), Bob Voss (Chesterland), Sheila Hedrick (Cuyahoga Falls), Ryan Knotts (Hillcrest Sunrise), Patricia Myers (DGE), David Skrzynski (Vice-Governor), Nathan Watson (formerly of the Kent club), and Fran Zettl (Cleveland).
The charge of this committee is to create an understandable and concrete policy for the District establishing what every club involved in youth activities needs to accomplish by way of procedures to maintain the safest possible environment for the youth, regardless of the activity involved. The Rotary Youth Exchange program is already far advanced in this process and provides the “gold” standard for youth safety. The RYE program involves background checks, training of host families, training of youth exchange participants, and other elements. While our District and every club in it have always been concerned about youth safety, we need to formalize the process. In fact, Rotary International’s new anti-harassment policy mandates it.
The Youth Protection Committee has been active. It currently has a drafting sub-committee hard at work to come up with the policy itself. Bob Heydorn from Cuyahoga Falls is leading this effort, although he is ably assisted by several other members of the committee. Ryan Knotts, a member of the LEADs Committee, is also a member of the Youth Protection Committee and the drafting subcommittee. Our goal is to make sure we have an early and effective transmittal of information to the LEADs Committee because it will be in charge of “rolling out” this policy.
In closing, there are two events that I want to draw your attention to at this point. First is All Ohio PETs. You should save the dates of March 13 and 14, 2020. The event will occur at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Columbus. The speakers will be outstanding and include Rotary International President-Elect Holger Knaack and the Governor of the State of Ohio, the Honorable Mike DeWine, among others. Registration is now open.
Looking a bit further into the future, please mark your calendars and save the date for the District Conference and District Leadership Assembly. They will be held at the Sheraton Suites in Cuyahoga Falls from April 24-25, 2020. The Keynote Speaker for this conference, which is themed around assisting at-risk children, will be the nationally award winning Summit County Juvenile Court Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio. Registration will be open soon.
Best wishes from myself and all the members of your District leadership team as we move forward into a happy and new year.
Yours in Rotary Service,
John Reyes
Rotary District 6630 Governor 2019-2020
Tel: 330.258.6469
Email: jreyes@bdblaw.com
Rotary District 6630 Governor 2019-2020
Tel: 330.258.6469
Email: jreyes@bdblaw.com
PEACEBUILDING AND CONFLICT PREVENTION
DISEASE PREVENTION AND TREATMENT
WATER. SANITATION, AND HYGIENE
MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH
BASIC EDUCATION AND LITERACY
COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
