Today was an In-Person meeting at Madeline’s in Fogelsville. There were 17 of us present, plus 8 on line.
Our Gretter was Amir Famili. Sgt-at-Arms Mitch Huston handled registration, happy dollars and prizes.
GUEST:
Michelle Feeney, guest of Gail Micca.
OPENING:
President Gail Micca rang the bell and started the meeting at 7:30 A.M.
Jill Kearney gave a very nice invocation.
After some time to eat and talk, Pres. Gail asked Len Salines to lead us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the U.S.
Then Pres. Gail led us in the recitation of the Four-way Test, and added “Is it Fun?”
CELEBRATIONS:
Pres. Gail displayed the list of August member celebration events. The list is shown below.
Our guest, Michelle, told us about the upcoming fundraising events for the Pediatric Cancer Foundation.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
PRIZES:
The $19 of the 50-50 was won by Chuck Ehninger. There were 3 door prizes. Fresh produce from Amir’s garden was won by Ernie Boll. Tickets to a Fair were won by Jill and Chris.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Mitch Huston is happy that the Drum & Bugle Corps event went so well. The attendance was the highest in the U.S. for that kind of event.
Jeanne Shipe is happy to have found a great definition of Gail -- “Bad ass woman who takes care of everyone.”
Herb Klotz is happy about their great trip to Alaska.
Herb also is happy to be meeting his Zone partner in Membership work this week from Canada.
Gail Micca is happy that our Casino Night plans are going well.
Pres. Gail announced that at our Aug 24th In-Person meeting we will have presentations from STEM YEA students, and also RYLA/Camp Neidig.
NATIONAL NIGHT OUT:
Gail noted that this was a very successful event.
FRESH FLOWERS FOR SALE:
See separate article.
MEALS ON WHEELS:
Helen Papathanasiou still needs more volunteers. They would be substitutes with sporadic assignments.
GREEN THUMB GARDEN:
Our garden is giving us great produce to go to food pantries.
PARKLAND C.A.R.E.S.:
Their food pantry work day has changed from Saturdays to Tuesday evenings.
Karen Rodgers led the effort yesterday that provided food, including some of our fresh produce, to about 200 families. THEY WERE VERY APPRECIATIVE.
KINGDOM LIFE FOOD BANK:
WE NEED HELP -- JEAN MASIKO IS AWAY for the next distribution set for August 13th.
CASINO NIGHT:
There will be a tour of the Wheels Museum available to us on August 18th at 10 or 11 A.M.
Printed ad business cards were handed out by Gail today, along with other materials.
POLIO ERADICATION RUN:
This will be on October 15th.
MULTI-CLUB MEMBERSHIP EVENT:
On October 19th we will hold a cornhole tournament and get-together in Center Valley.
D7430 POLIO ERADICATION EVENT:
This annual district-wide fundraiser will be managed by the Pottstown and West Reading Wyomissing RCs on Saturday, October 15th. More details are coming.
NEXT MORNING MEETING:
Wednesday August 17 VIA ZOOM starting at 7:30 A.M. Come on at 7:00 and talk to each other.
Our program will be Shuree, arranged by Nick Millward. We will hear about her life and initiative. She founded the "Tech Education Fund" which is designed to support Mongolian students who want to pursue STEM majors in the US. Her organization is fairly new/young... but she has been serving the community for many years.
PROGRAM:
Our Program today was conducted by PDG Herb Klotz -- Zones 28/32 Membership Coordinator -- and AWRC Membership Chair, Tori Morgan.
Herb noted that August is Membership Month in the Rotary world. Herb said there will be Webinars on this subject on August 24 and 25, and again in Sept. and Oct. The registration for 8-24 is huge; thus the 8-25 add-on.
Herb described a study that was done on this subject covering the pandemic years. There were 96 RCs out of 2,000 in the study that grew their membership in spite of Covid.
There are 5 reasons determined as growth issues.
1. Strong Leadership
2. They had established goals and a plan to meet them
3. They had many service projects and volunteers could help
4. They had visibility in their community
5. They actively had members engaged
Herb said that AWRC has a lot of these characteristics. But a review of our member headcount over the last 5 years says we have a problem. We have added an average of 7 new members, and lost an average of 10 members each year. Our active member count now is 52. It was 70 5 years ago.
This will continue unless something changes. Our opportunity is to attract new members. We have 2 events coming up in the next 2 months to work on. Sept. 23 is Casino Night, and Oct. 18th is the Cornhole Tournament.
Next Tori Morgan said “We all are recruiters for Rotary.” She asked “Why do people want to join?” She listed:
Doing some good
Networking
Fellowship
When we meet and discuss Rotary with candidates for membership, it is essential to find out what those candidates care about. What are their issues that membership in Rotary could support.
Today’s Rotary wants members to get involved in projects. Actual attendance at meetings is not emphasized. Just get things done.
Tori noted that AWRC has “Quality” members, and that must continue.
Then Tori said besides growing membership we need to raise funds to pay for our projects. We do this with fun events like Casino Night.
Discussions followed about the props available to promote Casino Night. We need to get ticket sales up from 40 now to 150 or 200. The museum can hold 300 people. And we need more sponsors than the $13,000 we have so far.
CLOSING:
At Gail’s request, P-E Jill Kearney rang the bell and adjourned the meeting.
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