Rotary - There is Little Progress without Relationships.

The Object of Rotary - Rotary's Differentiating Value Proposition.

Who Rotarians Are.

Rotary International Directors - Two or Three Year Tenure is Secondary to Fulfilling Their Director Responsibilities.

    All discussion regarding any Board of Directors must start by defining roles and responsibilities.  In summary, the Board of Directors (Board) of Rotary International (RI) is responsible for steering RI toward a sustainable future by adopting sound, ethical, and legal governance and financial management policies.  Board members are, or should be, RI's navigators and forecasters; they are supposed to provide foresight, oversight, and insight.  Putting all this together, Board members must assure that RI is being properly financed as it pursues its objective - advancing the Object of Rotary. 

    Membership's overall stagnation, and decline in major market areas, reflects that many directors in the last two to three decades have not fulfilled their responsibilities.  The primary cause was intellectual inbreeding.  RI Board members are elected internally. They are Rotarians nominated by Zones because of their popularity, not because of the expertise they should take to the Board.  Those who did have the expertise and tried to buck senior Rotary and staff leaders' inbred thought processes had limited influence because of the two-year term limit and the "humor and/or ignore them, they'll go away in two years" attitude it created. 

   The Council on Legislation's Proposed Enactment 16-58 is to increase the director's term of office from two to three years.  Director's terms should definitely be more than two years, but that is secondary to the major director issue.  RI's role, defined in its own Constitution and By-Laws, is to support the clubs in their pursuit of programs and activities that promote the Object of Rotary.

Regardless of the tenure, Rotarians elected to the Board must be fully aware of RI's role and how it is financed, They must also be firmly committed to advancing the Object of Rotary for the foreseeable future.  Otherwise, only their egos will receive any benefit if they become a member of RI's Board of Directors.

Rotary International must have a Standing Membership Committee!

What really caused membership in Rotary International (RI) to stagnate? For membership to decline in major market areas?   Many past Rotary leaders blamed the economy; others the 'Bowling Alone' syndrome.  These were excuses.  Simply put, nobody at RI was watching the store i.e. understood why those who funded RI - Rotarians - joined and stayed in local Rotary clubs.  This would have been the task of a standing membership committee, but RI has never had one!

     RI bylaws Article 16 states: The Board shall establish standing committees on communications, constitution and bylaws, conventions, districting, election review, finance and Rotaract and Interact.  Article 16-020 calls for a membership committee, but it serves at the whim of the RI president who often, year after year, changed the committee's composition, priority and direction.

     The seriousness of RI's membership condition was revealed in 2011.  Since then, young lions and lionesses in senior leadership positions have recognized the importance of establishing a membership committee, a guiding coalition that could help steer RI into the future.  For more discussion on this crucial issue, consider referencing Retention Central's Retain to Gain Series, particularly its first three elements.

     RI Council on Legislation Proposed Enactment 16-90 Provide for a Membership Committee is a necessity.  Without a standing membership committee - a membership guiding coalition - any strategic plan that RI devises will, in the long run, be wasted effort.

THE ROTARIAN. Is it a Magazine on Forced Life Support?

     As Rotarians age, many body parts no longer serve the purpose for which they were designed.  It is not uncommon for Rotarians, particularly in the case of accidents, to be put on life support, hoping that their non-functioning organs will once again become functional.  Sometimes they do, but often, particularly in aged Rotarians, they don't, and the Rotarian becomes a memory. 

     So what does this have to do with The Rotarian magazine?  According to the Rotary International (RI) By-Laws paragraph 20.010, the purpose of The Rotarian shall be to serve as a medium to assist the board (RI Board of Directors) in furthering the purposes of RI and the Object of Rotary.  According to the financial analysis in the 2016 Council on Legislation's proposed enactment 16-97, The Rotarian generates approximately US$1.2 million annual revenue over costs.

     Is The Rotarian accomplishing its purpose?  This is an important question that requires unbiased examination and response simply because if the subscribers do not consider it useful, they will not read it.  If it is not being read, it cannot be accomplishing its purpose.  In addition, RI is known for being an organization that promotes high ethical standards.  What ethical, and business management, perception is it delivering by continuing to mandate life support to an organ that may be non-functioning?  The only accurate, objective manner to determine how many subscribers find it useful is for subscription to be voluntary.

     RI must face reality.  Its purpose is to create Rotarians.  Its objective is to advance the Object of Rotary.  These fundamentals have not changed, but Rotarians and times have.  Years ago, when The Rotarian began circulation, it probably was accomplishing its purpose because printed media was the major means of universal communication.  Today, many in the Silent and late Boomer generations (over 60) still gather functional information from printed media, but most Rotarians in the early Boomer, X, and Y generations primarily use electronic media, mainly tablets and smart phones.  The printed version is an attractive magazine; the on-line version is okay on desktop monitors but is less user friendly on tablets and smart phones. 

     Just like the only true measure of RI's effectiveness in furthering the Object of Rotary is how many Rotarians its 35,000 member clubs retain and attract, the only true measure of The Rotarian's effectiveness is the number of voluntary subscribers that it could retain and attract.  It is time to remove life support to determine whether or not The Rotarian is capable of serving its purpose.