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This page is an on-line version of our monthly District Gazette which gets sent out to all the Clubs in the District. The original author of each article is quoted in the header. All articles were transferred to this web-page by Simon Dobby.
Hi and welcome to the September mailshot. As usual it is packed with loads of information about your District.
PLease do discuss the radio advert with your club. If we, as Rotaractors, do not act now, very soon indeed there may well be two fewer clubs in the District in the next couple of months. It is up to you and the District Exec can only do so much.
The President's Training Day had to be cancelled for the following reasons :
Don't forget there is the Rotary Scholarships event in Winchester, and may the best club win the John Clemoe.
(Heather and Simon)
Well yet again it has been an interesting Rotaract month with the first District meeting of the new Rotaract year and the subsequent letter which was sent to all clubs concerning the Wave FM proposal.
For the first time Alton, Andover and Southampton West used email to talk to Simon. Keep it up - it was great to hear from you and we hope the replies sent were informative enough.
A Plea to all of you : Please let us know what you are up to - this is your newsletter so please use it!
News hot off the press is that Cindy Whitfield from Portsmouth has kindly agreed to take on the post of District Treasurer from Mark Pullen who will be moving to Chester in late September.
With regard to mailshots, please let us have anything you want sent out by the end of the first week in the month so we can post out the mailshot in time for the second round of meetings each month.
Back To Top(Simon)
More suggestions have now come to our attention following the District Exec meeting. These include :
If anyone else has any ideas then please let us know and we will publish them.
Back To Top(Patrick)
You pay quite a bit of money to your Club Treasurer each year - but where does it all go? The Exec does not usually run off to South America with it. The use is much more mundane :
...to name but a few. Any queries phone Patrick or Cindy.
District Subs
Your Club membership subs to District are now OVERDUE!
RI $20 International Subs
Your CLub Treasurer should now have received a demand for a $20 levy from RI in America - Do
Not Pay It!. Instead each club should send a cheque for £12.40 to RIBI who
collect it from all GB&I clubs to get a better exchange rate. Contact the District
Secretary for the address.
(Simon)
Back in March 1987, when Rotaract D1110 (D111 as it was then) still had 740 members, the District magazine ("DILL") reported the death of Portsmouth North Rotaract Club thus :
"On Monday 9th February 1987 Portsmouth North Rotaract Club was disbanded. This sad fact was made known to the District Conference [aka Party Weekend], but how and why did things become this bad?
"The decline of [the club] began 4 years ago [1983] although, at the time, the warning signs were not apparent when 8 of its 20 members left upon reaching the age limit. Despite many attempts at increasing membership, the club remained at about 12 members.
"Although Portsmouth North did attract occasional new members, there was little interest in actual organising. This apathy grew and introduced an element of boredom into an already small club until Jeremy Sleighton was ...left holding 4 of the offices of the club...
...Rotary were informed of the seriousness...and token efforts were made to change the situation. These efforts brought brief reprieve but not enough. It was suggested that Gosport Rotary might be of help ... it seemed as if this proposal was never tried. It also appeared that the same old problem had arisen - the majority of Rotarians being indifferent or ignorant of Rotaract...
"There were 12 listed members at the end, but none of them [was] able to commit themselves any more ... so on 9th February all funds and the chain of office were handed over to Rotary.
"Perhaps we should all learn something from this."
For a Club to disband while still containing 12 members is cause for alarm! Portsmouth & Southsea currently has 7 members, and Poole is down to only a couple of people. What is keeping them going? Enthusiasm, that's what.
The decline of Rotaract numbers (for whatever reasons) means that Clubs need to be even more enthusiastic about getting on with things than they were before. If clubs just simply have a meeting twice a month and maybe go to the pub occasionally, they will in all likelihood end up next to Portsmouth North in the great Rotaract Club in the sky.
Publicity is a big topic at the moment, but there is more to it than that. Part of the problem is internal - "apathy" as the article said, leading to "boredom". A slippery slope indeed towards club closure.
So don't wait for your club to become the next victim of apathy. Make the effort to go to events both at the Club and District level - pick up the phone and challenge another club to a game of whatever takes your fancy, organise an event to raise money and generally have a bit of a laugh. Talk to your local Rotary, invite them to your events and ask if you can join in with theirs - they are not all a bunch of old farts, you know! - no offence to any Rotarians reading this :o)
Basically, just get out there and PARTICIPATE. I don't want to be here next month, the month after or even next year having to report the death of your Rotaract Club.
Back To TopYou can email us at d1110@rotaract.org.
This page was last updated on 25-November-1998 by simon.dobby@cwcom.net
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