Every person or organisation has a story to tell which will interest the media.  We need to increase public awareness and understanding of Rotary to set the stage for membership growth, fundraising and collaboration.  

Rotary members are actively working to improve communities around the world and have so much to share with an external audience so they can learn about Rotary and also hopefully join in our efforts.  The positive news is that media needs stories now more than ever - journalists require fresh information to plug into websites, papers, radio slots and television slots.  Time zones and printing schedules don’t limit the media anymore and most news outlets have a 24-hour news cycle to meet the growing demand to deliver news as it happens.

 

If we look at our District 9800, we have 65 Rotary clubs. This is down from the 67 of five years ago, and our membership has also declined from around 2,400 to 2,100 in that time, an average of about five members a club, or one per club per year. This is a long-term trend across all Districts in Australia and much of the developed world, but what would it take for us to have a net increase of two each year per club, rather than a decline of one?

 

This taught me to reach our level of success as trainers, we had to invest to be the best, exhibiting competence from initial contact to classroom training and in-water skill development.

 

 

With shutdowns, border closures and social distancing all businesses have had to look at their business models and come up with solutions to trade profitably in the new environment.Regretfully many won’t find solutions and will close.

What about Rotary? Can we survive if our members face ongoing unemployment or substantially reduced retirement incomes? Social distancing and border closures will continue for years’ ahead without a vaccine. There is no guarantee of a vaccine and this is the fourth SARS type virus in the last 20 years.