Speeches :
PRESIDENTIAL MEMBERSHIP CONFERENCE – NEW DELHI – 3rd DECEMBER, 2007
Members of the Rotary Family and Fellow Rotarians:
1. There are several definitions of the word Club. One of them is “An Association dedicated to a particular interest or activity.
2. Our Rotary Clubs being service units of Rotary International are guided by:
3 Cs – Care, Concern and Compassion, and Not 3 Bs –
Bar, Bridge and Billiards. Nevertheless, we have no hard feelings on any human
activity even if it belongs to the 3B category. 
3. All of you would know, a Rotarian is a member of the Rotary Club and Rotary Club is in turn is the member of the Rotary International, existing in accordance with R I Constitution and Bylaws. Therefore, when a Club is admitted to membership in RI, it is required to adopt as its Constitution, the Standard Rotary Club Constitution.
4. Effective Rotary Clubs are those which :-
(i) Sustain and/or grow their membership base;
(ii) Implement successful service projects in their community and communities in other countries.
(iii) Support the Rotary Foundation, both financially and through programme participation, and
(iv) Develop leaders capable of serving in Rotary beyond the Club level.
5. To do this and much more, Rotary Clubs should create their own reserve of talent and skills resource base viz the Rotarians. This is possible through Membership Development which is essentially composed of three components:
a) Recruitment of new members;
b) Retention of existing members and
c) The organization of new Clubs, which is an extension activity.
6. Remember friends, the strength of a chain depends upon the weakest link. Therefore, if you induct Rotarians who are truly and really leaders in their business or profession, you would have a strong Club. Members for membership sake is no use. It will weaken your Clubs and de-motivate the existing serious Rotarians.
7. All of us would agree, the strength of our International organization lies in the diversity of our Membership united through the bonds of Fellowship and Friendship.
8 Therefore, the challenge for us now is to keep Rotary internally healthy so that we would meet our global mission. For those we take as members, it is absolutely necessary that we effectively orient, educate, involve, assign and ask our existing Rotarians to let the organization touch them. It is not enough that they are in Rotary.Rotary must be in them. The new Rotarians need to be involved and informed. Informed and involved about the concept of our motto: “Service above Self”
9
The
future of our organization relies heavily on our ability to pass our “Commitment
to Service” and our belief in values of Volunteerism on to those who will take
up the matter when we are no longer here to serve. Whatever the Century,
whatever the time, the FUTURE will always belong to the New Generation – The
Generation Next. The New Generation of volunteers – Our Children. We need to
encourage them, encourage the route through Interact and Rotaract and encompass
the Family of Rotary;
10 Friends, as members of your respective Rotary Clubs, please remember that “Public Image” depends entirely upon you. With a slight modification to what the former US President John Kennedy had said, I would like to say: “Ask not what your Rotary Club can do for you; Ask what you can do for your Rotary Club – and in your communities. ”
11. In brief, the Public image of a Rotary Club, which is a vital aspect of Club Service, is a mirror of reflection of your Service- your work meeting the felt needs of the people. You need to have member who will enhance your Club’s image and not tarnish the same.
12. Many of you must have heard the word RINO. No, not the one-horn animal with spectacular strength but RINO: which means: Rotarians In Name Only.
13. The other day, I met a Rotarian from Kolkatta in an official meeting in Hyderabad. The person tried to endear himself with me when he knew from my bio-data as I was a R I Director. During our talks on the sidelines of the official meeting, I was aghast at the confession of the person (though a simple person). He has joined Rotary to expand his network so that he could do better business.
That by itself may not be all that bad; but when asked further, he said that he did not have time to attend Club meetings and seldom made up attendance. The question is: Do we want such members who are a burden on the Club and also get us a bad Public Image?
14. For effective Membership Development senior Rotarians should give way to the younger Members. Help them, mentor them and guide them. Help them to grow and feel a satisfaction of Rotary Service.
15. Rotary Clubs are dynamic Organizations. Think New, Think for the future and think how you can have “Quality Members” in Quantity. Let me underline the approach of Rotary International. The strategy is have only, and only Quality Members. Also have Quality new Clubs which can sustain themselves in their local communities.
How you can do this is the challenge. This is why, you are in this forum – The Presidential Conference on Membership. Gather new ideas, develop new strategies, think “out of the box” – the world is then at your doorsteps.
A conference such as this, with R I President at its helm is one of the best ways to educate Rotarians. Almost every aspect of the programme of Membership Growth and Membership Retention will be presented to the audience and coming from the stalwarts, who represent the cream of Rotary, there is going to be feast of information, ideas and solutions.
Remember that Rotary devotes a lot of time, lots of energy and lots of efforts to ensure the growth. Yet, the results have been disappointing. The conference such as this one will expose us to novel ideas and novel methods to keeps us from dwindling in numbers. We expect very important inputs from our faculty and I am confident that we will emerge successful in controlling our losses through brilliant ideas presented at this meet.
I will end with a quote:
Swami Chinmayananda had once remarked “We can discover our joy in the precision and perfection of the work that we turn out. Whether others recognize it or not, we have got a satisfaction that we did our work as best as we could and there is a silent stream of joy that sings a secret song at all times in our Hearts”
GOD BLESS
Best of luck to all of you.
ASHOK MAHAJAN
DIRECTOR – ROTARY INTERNATIONAL
Copyright (c)2011 Ashokmahajan.com
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