Our Greeter today was Geoff Legg and he did a marvelous job.
President Mike Gschwendtner rang the bell at 7:30 A.M. to open the meeting. Chuck Ehninger gave a very nice invocation and included asking for help with membership..
President Mike began the meeting having the members recite the Five-way Test with the fifth question, “Is it Fun?” We recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the U.S.
GUESTS:
Just us AW folks today.
President Mike showed photographs from our last meeting including our Picnic from last Sunday. And he had a picture of Bill Palmer eating breakfast all alone last week at a table for 8. There was a picture of Mitch Huston too.
LOWHILL FOOD PANTRY COLLECTION JAR:
President Mike reminds us that the jar is at the registration desk for cash and check contributions that our club members are supporting.
SIERRA LEONE UPDATE:
Herb Klotz reported with showing how the workers at the school prepare, deliver and spread concrete. There is much manual work and no transport or distribution tools.
CLUB SERVICE COMMITTEE CHAIR NEEDED:
A volunteer is needed to replace Gloria Zimmerman as our Club Service Chair. See President Mike.
AWRC SERVICE AWARDS:
Chuck Ehninger has three nominations and more are needed. He has the forms.
SCHEDULE:
President Mike announces upcoming events at our meetings and a list of them appears on our website. A list of the appropriate contact information appears each week in the A-W bulletin.
THURSDAY EVENING MEETING:
August 24th will be a Happy Hour and business meeting at the Holiday Inn starting at 5:30 P.M.
SIGN UP NOW for the ROTARY LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE (RLI):
Registration is open now for the September 16th training at DeSales. See separate article. P-E Jeanne recommends this highly for all.
NOTE, your registration fee will be reimbursed to you in full by our RC.
DICTIONARY PROJECT 2017:
Amir Famili is this year’s chair and he is asking for donations and also for assistance in adding labels and staging the books for delivery.
DINING OUT for SEPTEMBER:
Ronnee Klotz asks for sign-ups for Friday evening at 6:00 P.M. on September 15th at Queen City BBQ, 27 N 7th St, Allentown --- where Shula’s used to be on the Arts Walk.
.NEXT WEEK:
Our Greeter will be Jean Machamer and the program will be two students who attended the Camp Neidig (RYLA) weekend last June.
President Mike introduced our “Entertainment chair”, S-a-A, Mitch Huston. Mitch noted that our prior S-a-A, Don Davis, has returned from his extended vacation has provided a serious critique of Mitch’s performance after 6 weeks in the job.
LUCK OF THE DRAW:
Our Sergeant-at-Arms, Mitch Huston, conducted the raffle drawings.
The door prize donated by Geoff Legg was 4 tickets to the Allentown Fair, and after Mitch’s ticket, and then Geoff’s ticket were drawn, Dan Crane was the winner.
The $50 pot of the 50:50 was not won by Bill Palmer’s ticket…... again. There now are eight marbles remaining.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Gary Englehardt is pleased that Don Davis has joined the Tempting Tastes 4 committee.
Dan Crane said something about a horse going into a Bar and being asked “Why the long face?”
Herb Klotz is happy that there will be another fundraiser for the Centennial School in Sierra Leone.
Don Davis said that today is wife Connie’s birthday.
Mitch Huston was fined by Don Davis because Mitch flunked lock-box opening.
It was noted that Bill Weber wore no socks this morning.
Jean Masiko had a houseful of family last Sunday as they celebrated the birth of Vincent, their Great Great Grandson.
Halyna Stegura happily reports that after touring the country on her bicycle, daughter Christina is back home in Wash, D,C,
Halyna thanks the Webers for hosting the Picnic last Sunday.
Chuck Ehninger thanks the Webers for the great picnic.
Sue Weber said that we had 45 folks at the picnic and she thanked all for making it go so well.
Sue also thanked Bill Palmer for sponsoring the Picnic again this year.
Joe Goll noted that he and Peggy celebrated 41 years of marriage last month. He also is happy that while in Key West, FL, they bought a house.
Geoff Legg thanked Bill Weber for reserving the “Outhouse” for him ----- it’s a long story.
Geoff also is happy that he his traveling to Colorado next week.
Mitch Huston told a good story about getting a complete exercise workout by just getting into your leotards.
Sue Weber is happy that she and Bill are traveling to Sweden soon as part of the District Friendship Exchange program.
PROGRAM:
Our program today was Herb Klotz, our Membership Chair, discussing Membership plans for this year. He said given the right circumstances, it’s not too hard to recruit new Rotarians, The new Whitehall Area and Upper Perk RCs each are up to 32 members.
As an aside, Herb encourages us to join with the Whitehall Area Rotarians for their November shopping trip in New York City.
The Membership plan breaks into three parts; Recruitment, Engagement, and Retention. Towards Recruitment, Herb said that our club will hold two membership recruiting Receptions. The first will be at Wegman‘s on Tilghman Street from 5:30 to 7:00 P.M. on Thursday November 2nd.
There now is a contest underway within the club pitting the Thursday evening members against the Wednesday morning members to see which group recruits the better number. The winning team will receive a yet to be named treat.
Note that Ronnee Klotz and Ginny Sandoval are part of the Thursday team, and they call themselves the “Night Hawks.” Later Bill Weber named the Wednesday team the “Early Birds.”
Herb explained that there are some “alternate” meeting options that now RI allows. Our board of directors has approved one that offers a $50 saving for the first year of membership to new members.
There also is a “Corporate” Membership available that the Norristown RC now is offering. Each RC can customize this a bit. And there can be a “Family” membership where the second, third, etc. family member to join our RC each pay a lower dues amount.
For retention we need to:
Get new members included right away
Have formal induction ceremonies
Provide good orientation training
Have prompt Classification Talks
Assign Mentors
Get them involved with projects and committees.
Barbara Kistler will lead this effort for our club. Herb noted that starting July 1st 2018 our club will need a new Membership Chair. As District Governor-Elect, Herb cannot do it again.
Herb said that last year our 43 District RCs added 195 new members………….. and we lost 215 members. It was adding the 2 new RCs that gave us positive growth.
Engagement is the key to retaining members. We have to have our members involved in projects. We need to encourage members to take leadership roles in the club and the district. And using social media effectively enhances recruitment.
Herb suggests we need to add at least ten (10) new members this year so that we might have a net gain. We already have lost four so far this year. We must focus on Marketing ourselves.
Herb gave each table 10 minutes to discuss ideas to increase membership. Here are the ideas for membership recruiting shared at the meeting this morning:
Obtain RLI membership presentations and use the ideas for recruitment.
Ask people more than once.
Personal contact is key. Think about what’s in it for the prospective member.
Get a list of people recently moving into the area and invite them.
Target people in the 40’s and 50’s through presentations at corporate events (e.g., PP&L).
CLOSING:
We closed the meeting by reciting the saying “One profits most who serves best.”
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