President’s Message April 2020
Download here: Letter to Members April 2020
or Read below:
8th April, 2020
Fellow Rotarians,
I trust that you and your loved ones are in good health and all taking whatever steps are necessary to stay that way.
Your club has taken some monumental steps over the last couple of weeks culminating in a few tough, but sensible steps taken at our Board meeting last evening.
Rotary Heidelberg has:
- Embraced the online concept of regular meetings and Board meetings
- Performed an online Induction for the first time in our history
- Maintained telephone contact with the less mobile of our members
Your Board last evening determined:
- To cancel our Golf Day for 2020 and hold it again in March 2021
- To no longer produce the hardcopy Members Handbook and to rely on the Club website and recently circulated one page Members Contact Sheet – with the live links to emails
- To transfer the funds raised at the Bushfire Relief Dinner to each of RAWCS for those attendees that sought a tax invoice, with the majority balance going to the District 9790 Bushfire Committee, chaired by PDG Bernie Bott
- To continue to support Polio Plus with our members contributions to Australian Rotary Foundation Trust
And now for the future …..
Probably never again (hopefully) will we get the opportunity to focus on our personal wellbeing for such a concentrated period.
Equally, we have the time to consider all the possibilities for the ongoing nature and potential rejuvenation of our good club. To strive to be better at what we do.
We have embraced the convenience of the online world, along with a good number of fellow Rotarians and of course others on the planet with the availability of such technology.
Our most significant challenges are our member average age and our need to generate regular, reliable funding with less time consuming, hands-on activities.
The current membership has either lots of time and limited energy or lots of energy but very limited time.
So how can our club generate regular income to allow us to continue to support the causes of RI as well as those in need within our local community?
Perhaps online.
Concept is an ‘Online Fundraising Enterprise’ where each month’s net profit is donated to the designated Rotary Month Focus. – Polio Now etc. And when such Focus is not seeking funding, the net profit would be set aside for or local good works.
One suggestion is that of establishing yet another ‘Wine Club’ – this one however aimed initially at Australian Rotarians, where RCH would act as the marketing arm with selected wine and liquor wholesalers providing lists of wines available from which we would make the ‘Rotary Selection’ (cases of 6). The orders would come to us online and we would pass them on to the wholesalers for packaging and direct distribution to the buyers. We may need a limited liquor license – Tom and the OE may be able to advise us early on.
But it doesn’t have to be wine.
Another suggestion is an online ‘Trailer Raffle’ or similar – not standing around selling tickets on street corners.
There must be more, please put your thinking hats on – nothing is too far out there at this stage – let’s facilitate rather than being hands-on, except of course enjoying the fellowship and funds from the BBQs!
We certainly have the time to generate a future strategy for Rotary Heidelberg and a gestation period to bring it to fruition.
Keep well.
Many thanks,
President Noel