Mission Accomplished!

February 23, 2012. That was my first post on this blog about my “experiment” to create a new Rotary Club in Oklahoma City. The club was to be a morning club — the OKC Sunrise Rotary Club. My “template” for its development was the successful OKC Midtown Rotary Club – a thriving club of younger members who emphasized service to the arts community. I wanted the Sunrise Club to comprise a wider variety of ages. In writing that post nearly two years ago, I envisioned the club would come together within six to nine months. That didn’t happen! I believe the biggest impediment was the meeting time of day. I found most people I know are NOT morning people! However, as we hit roadblocks in gaining members, I kept saying, “Surely we can find at least twenty morning people in the Oklahoma City area.” I exhausted my list of nineteen people whom I thought would be interested in joining. Of those nineteen, only ONE is actually in the club. However, an interesting phenomenon occurred: As I kept asking, I connected with a former Rotarian who wanted to get back into Rotary. It was his enthusiasm that kept this club alive. He brought in five members. Then, those five asked friends and the club started to grow. We had an initial group of seven, then ten, then thirteen. We were stuck at thirteen for nine months and it seemed like making the push to get the last seven needed members was insurmountable. That’s when I went back and read from that first blog post:

Why would someone want to come to a meeting week after week if they are not having fun or being entertained? … Sometimes the entertainment is education or information … Sometimes the entertainment is the meal, … with a group of friends. Sometimes the entertainment is participating in a club service project or fundraiser. I will posit to you at this point what I consider to be an absolute: IF A ROTARY CLUB MEMBER IS NOT HAVING FUN OR BEING ENTERTAINED, HE OR SHE WILL LEAVE THE CLUB.

At the time I re-read this post, Moore Oklahoma had just experienced the deadly tornado of May 2013. There is nothing “fun” or “entertaining” about the death and damage caused by an EF-5 tornado. However, it gave our fledgling club opportunities for service. We did projects to help victims’ relief efforts. Suddenly, we had three new members! However, none of us saw where we could find four more members needed to charter. We made the decision to become more aggressive with projects and schedule multiple projects in December. We had several individuals who were considering membership and we wanted to convince them our club was where they needed to be. We applied for and received a grant allowing us to replenish school physical therapy equipment destroyed in the tornado. We inquired of a local school for the homeless to see what we could do to help. We made contact with the Salvation Army to find something different to do. Last year, we “rang the bell,” as do many clubs. However, we wanted to do something different. One of our members found out about a volunteer opportunity in a suburb collecting donations at the “Christmas in the Park” light display. With each project, we asked members to volunteer and we scheduled time for fellowship before or after the projects. Since it is often hard to find extra time to help with projects, we scheduled one of them – assembling personal hygiene kits for the homeless school – during our regular meeting. Needless to say, we had nearly one hundred percent participation for that one! We also had twelve help at the Salvation Army’s Christmas Distribution Center. We had eight members deliver the physical therapy equipment and five deliver the hygiene kits. In the process of performing these fun and beneficial projects, we gained our four needed members.

I’m excited about our new club! However, I am also keenly aware that we cannot rest on our laurels of reaching twenty members. I ended my first blog post with this statement:

We get the individual to JOIN, but then we lose them because we — Rotary — was not as advertised. This is where we must change.

It is my belief that because we attracted members to our club through conducting service instead of sitting down for a meal, they might stay. However, merely boasting of past service will not provide satisfaction for long. We are subject to the pervasive attitude of, “What have you done for me lately?” Therefore, in order to be “as advertised,” we must continually look for new and different ways to serve our communities. Membership will take care of itself if we just offer fun, exciting and fulfilling opportunities to serve.