ANew Beginning

            I am truly humbled and a bit awestruck to be the new President of this great club. Each president of our club begins their year with a vision of what they hope to accomplish during their term…and I am no different.   Indeed our Rotary International presidents come up with a theme for their year. Last year it was Lead the Way, and this year our President is highlighting Rotary Shares.  While I will look for ways for us to demonstrate how our club shares the Rotary vision in our community and around the world, I have a theme for my year…and that is “A New Beginning”

            Now…what do I mean by “A New Beginning”?  Well, first it indicates that our club began many years ago, and we have a great history to look back upon with pride for all that we have accomplished and all of the fellowship we have shared.  I believe that it is very important for us to honor our history and traditions, and to honor those of you who have been members of this club for many years.  You have made the club what it is today.

            And yet, I am convinced that all institutions, all organizations, all Rotary Clubs need to acknowledge that the world around us continues to change, and if we are to remain relevant and vital, we need to make changes to reflect these new realities.  If we are interested in attracting the next generation of young, dynamic business leaders to join our club, and if we hope to retain them, we need to better reflect their world.

            When I first joined the club in 1999 I believe that we had well over 125 members, and at one time our club had over 140 members.  Today, our club has shrunk to only 76 members…76 great members…but clearly our membership has been declining at a significant rate.  This is not just happening in our Brunswick club, but to many Rotary clubs in our district, around the country and the world.

            We can choose to ignore this fact, or we can take actions that may begin to halt the decline, or better still, see our numbers begin to grow again.  But this will require us to take a hard look at how we raise awareness about all of the great things we do for the community and internationally, as well as a hard look at how we go about recruiting new members, how we find opportunities for fellowship and socializing, and how we run our meetings.

            When my father was in business back in the 50’s and 60’s he and his colleagues used to take 2-hour martini lunches. I doubt that much work took place on those afternoons.  Obviously, that is not how the current generation of business people conduct themselves.  For better or worse, the world is running at a much faster speed than ever before.  We all face more demands on our time, energy and money if we are going to succeed in business and in our personal lives.  Today’s business environment is growing faster, more computer-driven, more mobile and dynamic with each passing year.

            In our early discussions and planning meetings, our new officers and board have come up with a number of ideas regarding what we can do to make some subtle but effective shifts in our club’s culture to make us more relevant to the 21^st century business environment…something that is needed to ensure that our club will be vital and successful in promoting service above self 5 to 10 years from now.  The only way that these ideas and changes will be successful is if you…all of you…embrace them and help us make “A New Beginning” for our Rotary Club. 

Let’s talk about of these ideas and plans:

Public Awareness

            At a recent meeting, Past Presidnet Cathy Lamb read a long list of all of the local organizations that we support with our donations.  She also shared a list of all of the international projects that we support from Sri Lanka to Latin America; to helping eradicate polio around the world.  Our club has had a significant impact on the lives of many people here in our community and internationally.  But, I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of people in the community have no idea about all that we do.  We do so much good for so many people, but we don’t do enough to share that good news with our neighbors.

            I believe that the more we do to raise public awareness of what we as Rotarians accomplish with our service projects, the more people will want to join us in making a difference.  People will respond positively if they get a better understanding of what we are all about.

            So…we plan to do much more in generating publicity and news stories about our activities, programs and fundraising events.  We plan to find ways to let people know that it is Brunswick Rotarians running the Tour de Merrymeeting Bay, the July 4^th Children’s Event, funding the Teen Center, Outward Bound, Tedford Housing and much more.  

            We also hope to identify high-profile local service projects and organizations to partner with.   We can be proud of sharing our good work with others, and I believe that some will respond by wanting to become new members

            We have already begun to address issues pertaining to outdated information on our website.  Dave Dearborn, Mike Sfirri, Amy Landry and I plan on immediately updating our membership roster, and will keep other information, photos and articles updated monthly.  Our website is visible to the whole world, so we want it to accurately reflect who we are and what we do.

Fellowship

            Take a good look around the room at your fellow Rotarians at the next meeting you attend.  Can you honestly say you know the name of everyone in the room?  Do you know what they do for a living, the name of their spouse, their favorite hobbies or any other personal information? 

            One reason that you may not know these things is because we do not have many opportunities for fellowship…10 minutes at our meetings…working together on a service project, a once a year social event.

            Your new board and officers believe that enhancing opportunities for fellowship and networking will not only create better friendships and bonding among current members of our club, but will also be opportunities to attract new members.  So to make this happen, we are launching a new series of monthly fellowship gatherings called RPM: Rotary in the PM. 

            Here is how RPM will work.  We will pick a date each month to meet after work for refreshments at a local establishment such as the bar at Winners, the Sea Dog Brewery, MJ’s grill or other local watering holes and it will be BYO.  We can bring co-workers, spouses or significant others, friends or whomever we want to introduce to our fellow Rotarians. 

            We would also like to ask you to consider hosting an RPM gathering at your place of business, much like the successful Chamber After Hours events.  It would be a great way to tell members more about your business while hosting a fellowship event

            In addition to the obvious social benefit these events would offer, I believe that they would also give us a better opportunity to network.  We all know that we are not encouraged to talk about our businesses at our regular meetings, but networking is an important element of today’s business environment.  We believe that the RPM gatherings would be an appropriate way to network together, and would help attract and retain the new generation of business leaders to our club.

Membership

            As I mentioned earlier, our declining membership is a great concern that must be addressed.  We need to ask ourselves why we are in decline, and what can we do to reverse this downward trend.

            Currently, the only way that one can be become a member of our club is to be identified by a current member, invited to visit a meeting, and then be proposed for membership.  This process is rather limiting for a club that has such a significant number of retired members that are not as likely to be interacting with the current generation of business leaders of our community, and thus, are less likely to be able to introduce prospective members.

            I believe that we need to be more open and pro-active in the way we introduce people to the idea of joining Brunswick Rotary.  The enhanced publicity and public awareness initiatives I listed earlier will help…I believe that fellowship and networking opportunities provided by the RPM program will help too, but more will need to be done to turn our membership numbers in the right direction.

            Perhaps we should be more open to the idea of inviting people to join us who may not be top business leaders in our community in the traditional sense of the term, but are eager to participate in our service projects. 

            For example, there are a number of people in this area that have successful businesses run from their home using the internet.  Or, the parents of children who benefit from our funding of the Teen Center, Outward Bound, Interact, and RYLA could be invited to join us in supporting youth programs.  There are any number of well-educated, service oriented people who have made a decision to be home with their young children that would make great Rotarians.

            I also strongly believe that it would be beneficial to our club to have more women join us as members.  I know that they would bring a great level of creativity, insight and energy to our club.

            We will talk about membership throughout the year ahead, but I would like to ask each of you today to start thinking about what you can do to bring new blood into this club.  Think about who you are meeting, doing business with, encountering in your life that would be a great addition to our club.  I’d like to challenge every one of you to bring in at least one new member this year.  One new member each.  Bring someone to an RPM…to a club meeting…to a local service project.  It will be easier to accomplish than you may imagine.

Streamlining Club Meetings

            As I mentioned earlier, the world we live in runs at a much faster speed than ever before.  The demands on the time of current business leaders have increased making it more difficult for them to attend Rotary lunch meetings that take 1 ½ - 2 hours out of their Mondays.  Even with our relaxed attendance policies, the length of our meetings has made it difficult to attract and retain new members.

            To address this concern your new board and officers would like to take steps to streamline our meetings with a goal of keeping them to no more than 1 hour to 1.15 hour.  Here is how we plan to do this without taking away time for fellowship and for our speakers.

• We are asking our Sgt. at Arms and humorists to continue doing the fine job that they have done for us over the years, but to set a shorter limit of time for their portion of our program.  We are going to make sure that the content of our humor is always appropriate and in good taste
• Your president will try to limit his opening comments to only what is required
• We are moving the announcements to the start of the meetings so that when our program is finished, and raffle prizes awarded, you will be set free
• We are all truly grateful to Ron Swanson for leading us in song and appreciate his willingness to continue in this role.
• To make room for the announcements in the early part of our programs, and to again reflect the values and interests of the current generation of young business leaders we are making adjustments to the music portion of our program.  We will continue to sing the Welcome Song at every meeting…a wonderful tradition.  We will sing patriotic songs on the first Monday of each month following the moment of silent reflection. We will reserve other singing to special occasions, particularly associated with holidays.  Let’s give this a try, and if in a couple of months you all feel that you would like to return to our weekly singing we can go back to it. 
• Programs:  We have a terrific Program Committee headed by Dave Nadeau that has put together a great list of programs for your enjoyment in the coming months.  They will keep the focus on programs pertaining to business, the economy, entrepreneurial spirit, cultural activities, Rotary service projects and other topics of great interest.  It will be an interesting mix of programs that will give you even more reason to invite guests to join you at our meetings.
• We will make sure that our meetings are run with proper respect for our speakers and guests, and that our Question and Answer periods are for Questions and Answers,
• If needed, your president or Sgt. at Arms will politely intervene to limit and redirect any inappropriate behavior or excess noise that begins to take place.  No one wants to be a PC Cop, but we will maintain proper standards of behavior for the comfort of everyone at our meetings.

Service Projects

            Service to others is what Rotary is all about.  So, we plan to continue our history of providing service in a variety of ways locally and internationally.  We hope to find new, high-profile projects in our community such as our Town Common Fence Repair Project and interaction and support of the Teen Center.  We would welcome your suggestions if you think of a prominent town location, historical site or other area that we could adopt and refurbish.  We also want to find local organizations that would benefit from our partnership…particularly those benefiting youth.

            Internationally we have a long history of supporting important projects in Sri Lanka, Brazil and elsewhere.  I am particularly interested in starting a project that has direct relation to a member of our club who will go to the region to oversee the project…we need to know that our money and supplies are going to the people in need…not into someone’s pocket.  We are looking into some projects that Les Hodgdon and Sue Chadima are independently involved with, and hope to find a way to support their world service.

Financial Issues

            None of our local or international projects or the donations we make to a variety of local organizations can be done without money in our bank accounts.  This means we need to continue fundraising, and we need to establish a budget that keeps us living within our means.  We are looking forward to holding our 3^rd Capitol Steps fundraiser next April, and I am pleased that Mark Alexander, Glenn Michaels and Barry Shead have all agreed to help lead the way.  In the past we have assigned Incoming Presidents to oversee all fundraising activities for the club, so I have asked Dave Millar to take on this responsibility for Capitol Steps, and any other fundraisers that we deem needed this year.  I hope that this role for the Incoming President will continue in the years ahead.

Lets Have Fun

            Rotary meetings should also be about having fun and fellowship, about building friendships that reach beyond the walls of this building.  Our Program Committee has worked together for several years because we have so much fun with each other.  I would like to see this same type of good humor and laughter become the norm for all of our committees and our club meetings.  Let’s never forget to have a good time together as we work to meet our mission of providing service to others. 

This is Your Club

            I have tried to share with you the vision of your new board and officers for the year ahead.  But it is not just our club…this club is made up of all of us and should reflect the wishes, ideas and vision of every one of us.  I encourage you all to get fully involved with this club…to help shape what we do with your suggestions and energy.   By working together we can make a real difference in our club, our community and in our international projects.  This is your club…I encourage you to get more fully involved in making this year a great “New Beginning” for the Rotary Club of Brunswick.  Thank you.

Michael Todd

President, 2007 - 2008