It is so hard to believe I am half-way through my tenure as RCOT President for 2023-2024. It has been an amazing six months, one for which I will always be grateful: this period of time has given me the opportunity to serve our community in ways I never imagined.
To practicalities: As a club, as a Board of Directors, I believe that we have achieved - indeed - exceeded our goals. I will keep this brief:
Glenn Ewing, our Treasurer, says that we are ‘holding our own’, financially speaking. I’d like us to be doing more than that, but that will happen in the next six months, thereby setting up the PE Kurtis Dawson, for a very successful 2024-2025. Why do I say the next six months? Because:
Our Membership Director, Mitch Pisik, tells me that we have turned a corner. On RCOT’s behalf, Mitch set goals regarding membership increases, loss, and retention. And we are reliably meeting these goals. We seem to have stayed at about the same number, but we have members waiting in line for approval, and so our numbers will increase, and we have less loss of membership. Mitch works hard and has established a corporate-member-seeking sub-group. Importantly, to my mind, he provides a structured approach; structure takes time to implement, then time to reap results. The next six months, encompassing March Madness spearheaded by Vicki Jacobs, will demonstrate the value of the structured approach.
Our Services Director, Diana Madaras, has similarly brought structure to our service projects. Historically we have lost members because some have felt that RCOT is not doing enough service work. Now, due to the service projects, we have past members saying that they wished they had stayed with us. Diana has done us proud: by generating a good team, with creativity, she has established approximately 14 projects, some of which are already underway, and some have yet to start. She has implemented monthly prizes for members doing the most (recorded) service work. A notable project is the Reading Coach literacy project led by Dr Jon Wang: it is up and running again (I am a coach!), And there is the Community Food Bank project, the Adopt-a-road project……and more. This is what Rotary is about: service to others. And of course, we once again held a spectacularly successful car show, spearheaded by Lee Olitzky: the money generated by this, our signature event, allows RCOT to provide substantial financial support to local non-profit organisations. It is service work in the extreme. Further, RCOT has received a District grant of $2,000, to match our Foundation’s $2,000, totaling $4,000 for service work in Senegal, leading, hopefully, to a global grant. Personally, my service project while President is to seek donations of children’s books, to be donated to Make Way for Books, or similar entities. Books are already stacked against the walls in my home. Please give me more.
Our Programs are being managed by Pat Zumbusch and his team, who are doing an excellent job of bringing in speakers on a wide range of topics; all of whom are connected to our community, reflect Tucson, and offer interesting information. Programs and Membership are intertwined, to my mind, with each of them driving the other. Special thanks go to Gary Hirsch for working extremely hard, with huge success, to bring John Hewko, Rotary International’s General Secretary, to speak to our club on November 15th. What a coup!
Nina Trasoff, our Communications Director is busy working on improving the website to make it more ‘user friendly’ and is ensuring that we get coverage in District 5500’s promo materials, virtual and tangible.
Our Social Director, Alan Rogers, seems to have established an excellent relationship with Brother John’s: who knows? We may have many more mixers there……
Our Sergeant-at-arms, Dan Kalm, has re-initiated member recognitions (aka ‘fines’) which not only spotlight individuals in our club but also brings in a small amount of dollars. He has also brought back the long lost “Greeter Line” to our weekly meetings.
Randomly selected club members were invited to ‘listening sessions’: the facilitators of these sessions will report back to the board on ways members feel that the club meetings could be revitalised. I sincerely look forward to seeing the results of these sessions and implementing what I can, in the remaining time I have as President. Thereafter it’s up to Kurtis, our PE. We are nothing if not forward thinking.
While I am sure that there is much more that I can report, and folk that I have forgotten to mention, I think there is substantial content above: enough to see that we are moving ahead, with great aplomb. Thanks to Dorinna, to Erica and other board members for absolutely all of their hard work. Truly, their hard work leads to RCOT being able to serve our community in many and varied ways.
From my prior quarterly report, I repeat that we are an outstanding club. You are outstanding members. There is no doubt about that.
Cheerfully,
Margaret Higgins, PhD
RCOT President, 2023-2024
