OLORUNDARE ENIMOLA, Lagos
Rotary District 9110 on Saturday 27th January,2024 held her Information and Awareness programme to keep members updated with the core values of the Rotary to provide answers to the most pertinent questions and to further stir public interest in the Club's activism through the exhibition of Projects and Services executed by the various clubs under the district.
Past President Rotarian Funke Salau, who is the Chairperson of the Information and Awareness Programme planning Committee explained that the event was put together to enlighten Rotarians and members of the public about Rotary and its activities as a Club.
She said, "As a Club, we have the purpose of bringing business and Professional leaders together in order to provide humanitarian services, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations for the advancement of goodwill and peace around the World.
"I therefore enjoin you all to listen to our panelists, to educate yourself on Rotary activities and to be more knowledgeable about how we go about executing our humanitarian services." She stressed.
The District Governor, Rotarian Ifeyinwa Ejezie in her keynote address, she welcomed members, friends and guests to the event, stating that the Month of January is designated as the month of Awareness and Information, predicating the reason why the event was organised to give each Club a platform to further showcase what they acheived in the first six months of their investitures.
She said, "It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the celebration of the rotary awareness and information month in line with the Rotary International practice. January is the month dedicated to raising awareness about all that we do. And all Rotary stands for; its values and all its life touching activities and so on. It means the month when we consciously reflect on the purpose and promoting it. It is the time when Rotary leadership expects us to consider how our Rotary values and our own actions influence public perceptions of Rotary.
"Among the purpose of this celebration today is for us to challenge ourselves on how we as Rotarians not only become aware of Rotary endeavours but also how we promote Rotary ideals amongst family and communities. I thank our Rotary clubs for yielding to my call at the beginning of this Rotary year when I challenged us to take the issue of publicity and awareness very seriously and this the clubs have demonstrated by the countless number of billboards, newspaper publications, press interviews, TV publications, radio interviews, and so on." She added.
At the panelists session, participants were given deeper insights to the operations of Rotary, expected to foster greater understanding of the members and intending new members as the Club targets a result oriented Rotary year with streams of new members.
Bola Ogunbadejo, Past District Governor in his submission on New Clubs Development at the panelists table, said, New Club Development is the process of bringing people into Rotary through the formation of new clubs, saying, "we have three legs in the new club development, including; attraction, engagement and new club development. We have committees set up that will supervise and monitor how new clubs are formed and to achieve that, you need a new club adviser, secondly you need a sponsor club and most importantly you need Charter members."
PDG Onabadejo went ahead to name the nine processes required to form a new Rotary Club.
In his own delivery on membership attraction, engagement and club experience, PDG Wale Ogundadejo gave statistics about membership losses in Rotary, stressing that the same percentage of new membership intakes are lost within their first year of joining Rotary, throwing up the seriousness and need for membership drive, saying, 'the most important factor in memberships dissatisfaction is the club experience. How do we run your club? That is the most single factor for retaining members in your club."
He emphasised the need to get regular feedbacks from members about their feelings and level of satisfaction, particularly knowing their expectations for joining Rotary.
PDG Kola Sodipo who discussed on Foundation, Grants and Projects also tied his summation to the great value of members, saying, "of course without members, we cannot do projects because even if you have all the funds in this world and the members are not there to move the funds around for the execution of projects, assisting in the initiation of projects, we can not do much. The charitable arm of the organisation is the Rotary Foundation that allows us to do small, medium and massive projects across various communities and places around the world. It converts our donations into the various humanitarian services and projects executed, the more we have such donations the more that can be done."
Speaking on the panel about the maxim, 'Every Rotarian Every Year', PGD Bola Oyebade, after cross examining and having divergent opinions from the various Club Presidents present, explained that the maxim is self explanatory, requiring every bonafide member of the Club should make a donation of $100 annually to Rotary International, he said, "if all of us are pass our contributions to Rotary Foundation as expected, the funds available will be huge enough to handle various humanitarian projects globally."
The event was rounded up with the District Governor inspecting the project of the 47 Clubs present at their exhibition stands, appreciating them for the outstanding humanitarian projects, while urging them to do more in publicising their activities through Media platforms to elicit greater public awareness and to aid their membership growth drive.
At the end of the inspection, the Governor gave Awareness and Publicity Creation Award to the Rotary Club of Lagos which came first in that regard, while the Rotary Club of Ijoko was second and the Rotary Club of Ikeja was third.
No comments:
Post a Comment