We live in an era where there are ever-increasing demands on our time and energy. In Rotary, we do what we can, when we can – our level of involvement changes with our family and business commitments. Being a voluntary organisation, members are not subject to the discipline and levels of expectation that come with paid employment. However, as volunteers, we all realise that anything we don’t do will be unfairly left to someone else to complete and I ask each and every one of you to play your part in supporting our great Club in the coming year.

The chairs of our Club committees will have their own goals which they will work towards during the year, and you will be part of that as a committee member. What I would ask of each of you is that you set 3 individual goals – they don’t have to be life-changing ; it may be as simple as deciding to make that extra effort to attend a committee meeting on a particularly wintry night – whatever they are, 3 things which will define your commitment to our Club.

Going through life without goals is like a trip to the shop without a list, or a meeting with no agenda – things might be accomplished but it’s more through good luck than good management. I want everyone to reach the end of the new Rotary year and be happy with what they’ve done towards maintaining our position as one of the premier Clubs in Australia.

As you would be aware, there will be only four Club committees in the coming year – Community, Vocational & New Generations, Club Service and International. You will note the absence of the Fellowship and Marketing & Sponsorship Committees. As I have said before, this bears no reflection on the past performance of these committees. What I have seen over time is a significant duplication of effort where other committees have organised their own fundraising and social functions and where some have sourced their own sponsorship such as the Vocational Committee for Rotary Presents.  I’ll be looking for this to continue in 2011-12 and will assess the effectiveness of this during the year.

I aim to establish long term relationships with local schools through activities such as a mentoring program for Year 12 students and by engaging directly with the youth of Moonee Valley through an exciting initiative proposed by Roger Priestley. We will also hear presentations from those who participate in our programs. This provides valuable feedback to the Club and is a wonderful demonstration of the worth of our community involvement.

Our committees will provide regular activity updates, not only for the benefit of members, but also to let our guests know of the projects to which we apply our resources. We will continue our association with the VICPOL Leadership Mentoring Program and Richard Lawrence has kindly agreed to take on the role of Rotary mentor.

The Myanmar and Philippines projects are thriving and will continue to do so with valued assistance from external benefactors and a lot of leg work by many Club members. Some quite exciting information came to light on the recent delegation to Myanmar. A visiting American Rotarian revealed he had been successful in sourcing funding from TRF for a project in Myanmar, previously unheard of due to political sanctions. This sets a wonderful precedent and could potentially make a huge difference to what we achieve in this desperately underprivileged country.

The Kenyan project has been on the back-burner for some time in Matt O’Brien’s absence but we should be welcoming Matt back before too long and will hopefully see renewed progress in this area.

There has been a criticism in recent times of members not being given enough notice of upcoming events. This will be rectified by the inclusion of a yearly event calendar in Contact which will be updated on a regular basis. To briefly highlight several events already planned, you all know of the Gala Auction coming up on the 29th of July. This promises to be a very entertaining evening and one which should boost the Club’s coffers in support of DIK, a most worthy beneficiary. Kerry has a ladies day planned for September when a busload of members, partners and friends will travel to Bendigo to view an international wedding dress exhibition spanning the last two hundred years. I would like to hold another Club beach getaway weekend for February next year – those who participated in the last ‘Fun-raiser’ will recall what a wonderful time we had. As I said earlier, our committees will no doubt organise their own events, but sufficient notice of these and a coordinated calendar should help ensure pleasing attendance figures without emptying your pockets too regularly.

Prior to his departure for Mt. Blanc, Boris Struk was working hard on our weekly program and I also aim to have this published in Contact at least one month in advance. This will allow you all to pick suitable meetings which may be of interest to prospective members.

The annual subscription fee will rise to $295. This has been forced by rises in the fees we must pay to Rotary International and we have a responsibility to ensure that our Club remains solvent. Despite an increase in the cost of providing our lunchtime meal, the cost to members will remain at its current level for the 2011-12 year. The Club will pay for a welcome drink for guest speakers and invited dignitaries. This has been decided to ensure that members assigned the role of meeting and greeting are not financially penalised for their compliance.

When you do receive your hard-copy subscription invoice, it will include a voluntary donation form for the ‘Every Rotarian Every Year’ program, otherwise known as the ‘Centurion’ program. Some of you already participate in this but for those who don’t here’s brief ad for it. The ask is for $100 from every Rotarian, every year. This money goes directly to The Rotary Foundation, which is the charitable fund of all Rotarians. Foundation provides funds for the many matching grants our Club has obtained and for many other Rotary programs in which we participate. It is tax deductible and you know that 100% of your donation is applied without commission or overheads. To my mind it’s a win-win situation – you donate, receive a tax deduction and the money then comes back to us through grants. There are countless charities competing for your dollar throughout the year, but I urge you to consider our own charity ahead of all others. Without a growing Foundation, many Rotary programs would simply cease to exist.

I have asked each Committee chair to actively seek funding through the many grants available through both Rotary International and the State & Federal governments. There is a lot of public money available and many of our activities qualify for this funding. In January, I applied to the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development for a grant for IT equipment for our Club. In the past we have experienced issues of incompatibility and unavailability of equipment which has reflected poorly on our Club and has caused embarrassment for guest speakers. I submitted my application with the stated aim of raising the professionalism of our meetings and improving our public image. In turn, this would make guests more likely to consider membership or become benefactors of the Club.

My application was successful, and the $4000 grant received will allow the purchase of a notebook, data projector and peripherals which will be used for presentations by guest speakers and which will be available for use by Club members presenting at other Clubs. Of course nothing comes for free, and by the end of December I must report back to the Department with the results of this endeavour, which will hopefully show a 10% net increase in membership.   I seek your assistance in working towards this result. 

Members are the lifeblood of clubs and nothing can be achieved without them. However, it’s not a matter of pure numbers. We could have a membership base of 150 and be no better off if the extra 75 members were not active and committed. We do need more members who are both dedicated and enthusiastic to share the load and to enable us to achieve even greater things in the future. Since 2005 Australian Rotary membership has fallen 6% and this trend is reflected in other volunteer organisations both in Australia and overseas.  The interesting thing is that the major decline is led by men, while the level of volunteering by women is slowly increasing. As our lady members comprise only 17% of our national total, and only 13% of the membership of our own Club, and with an ever-increasing number of women achieving leading roles in business and in the community, there is an extremely large pool of potential members just waiting for us to invite them along.

I want ‘bang for the buck’ in all we do, not just for personal satisfaction, but to ensure the name of Rotary is still on people’s tongues long after a project has been completed. We could spread $40,000 amongst 40 different groups which ask for assistance, and while they may all be grateful at the time, there is no return benefit for Rotary – one year down the track the donation has been forgotten and no lasting contact has been established with the beneficiary. The organisations we support are another valuable source of potential members and must be pursued as an extension of our charitable efforts.

The world is changing and Rotary is changing along with it. For far too long there has been an over-emphasis on pure attendance as a measure of achievement. While you’ll be pleased to know I won’t be turning the Club on its ear, the Rotary International Board of Directors is becoming increasingly progressive in its outlook and is focusing more strongly on member engagement in Rotary activities and projects, rather than enforcing attendance at weekly meetings. In the next few years, long-standing rules will disappear – meetings may not be restricted to a particular day or night of the week, attendance guidelines will be overhauled, old-fashioned terminology will be updated making it more relevant, and more modern methods of communication will be adopted. This is not being done simply as a spring-cleaning measure – Rotarians tend to be on the more mature side of the ledger and we must present a more modern, flexible and relevant organisation in order to attract younger members.

Our Club achieves some wonderful things every year and I don’t believe we receive enough kudos for this. I’m not talking about individual recognition, but about spreading the word in both the local press and in Rotary publications to let others know what we’re doing.

We are all fortunate to belong to a Club which is held in such high regard by the wider Rotary community. I consider it a great privilege to be asked to lead the Club in 2011-12 and look forward to the assistance of all members as we strive to maintain the level of achievement for which our Club is justifiably proud.