PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

These questions were addressed at the Membership Development & Retention Seminar held at the Royal Selangor Club, K.L. on 3rd August 2008. It was organized by the RC of Bandar Sunway. Incidentally, August is the month about membership development and retention. Spearheaded by a group of experienced and distinguished Rotarians that included our District Governor, Dr Rajinder Singh, and PDG Dr Arasu, PDG Dato’ Dr Low Teong, PDG Datuk Dr Lakshmanan, PDG Dato’ Jimmy Lim and PP Dr Raveendra Kumar, the seminar provided insights into why members leave the Rotary Clubs.

There was a host of reasons that includes time commitment, Rotary membership expenses, lack of fellowship, poorly structured meetings, the lack of service projects and programmes that interest members and relevant to community needs. And the list ends with ‘unavoidable circumstances’.

How then could we have strategies that keep our Rotarians interested? Among the recommendations are immediate involvement in club activities and committees, encouraging family participation, promoting activities and service projects that meet community needs and putting in place a recruitment strategy to prepare for the unexpected loss in membership.

At our recent Board meeting, it was strongly advocated that all Directors of the Service Avenues make a strong effort in recruiting members. We need to reach out to potential members. They will not come to us. Our Club has broken the resilience in admitting lady members. There are now a few ladies who have indicated their interest in joining us. Let this year be remembered as the year that lady members are admitted as Rotarians of the RCPJ.

I mentioned at the beginning of my office that Rotary has to be meaningful in order to encourage Rotarians to be in this fraternity. I am seriously looking into more evening meetings and family trips that will strengthen our bond within the Club. I need ideas and suggestions from you all.

Meetings are awful situations. They make a person’s behaviour unnatural. Usually at such meetings, the chairmen are too ‘nice’ to stop such unwarranted practices. The first unwritten rule is that when you’ve nothing worthwhile to say, don’t utter it. It’s going to delay a meeting. We want meetings to end short and sweet. Private talk should be taken up after the adjournment of the meeting. I think it’s disturbing and rude. Talking across the table without acknowledging the chairman shows disrespect. All questions or comments should be directed to the chair, otherwise this gives rise to unnecessary personal remarks. The ability to summarize and be brief is a skill that should be learned. We don’t need background information and details are not unnecessary. If a member needs to find out more, he would direct the questions to the chair. Perhaps we have to be more sensitive and develop a self-monitoring mechanism of our behaviour at meetings.

The following extract of the decision of the Board at its meeting held on 31 Jul 08 is circulated for your information so that you are aware of how the Board will decide in any application for leave:

After some discussion the Board unanimously resolved that the following reasons are acceptable to the Board for granting leave of absence under the rules, namely

8.1 Hospitalisation or medical leave for an extended period (e.g. > 2 weeks).

8.2 Travel outside Malaysia for leisure or work for more than 2 Weeks.

8.3 Work pressure arising from change of job or job function or increase work load preventing the member concerned from attending weekly meetings, such leave not to exceed three months in total. If more than this period is required, the member concerned should be advised to leave the club temporarily and re-join later when his circumstances are such he can attend meetings and assume the obligations of a membership.

Unless circumstances prevent it (e.g. emergency hospitalization), all leave applications must be made in writing before the commencement of leave or not later than one week of the start of the leave period applied for. 

Events Qualifying for Make-up

The Board also decided that attendance and participation in any the following events qualify for a make-up 

As a special case a member nominated by the club to the NKF Board who has been assigned by the NKF to perform special functions for a period not less than one day can claim a make-up. A member attending and participating in any of the qualifying event is entitled to only one make-up.

I took my dad to the mall the other day to buy some new shoes. We decided to grab a bite at the food court. I noticed he was watching a teenager sitting next to him. The teenager had spiked hair in all different colours; green, red, orange, and blue. My dad kept staring at him. 

The teenager would look and find dad staring every time. When the teenager had enough, he sarcastically asked, 'What's the matter old man, never done anything wild in your life?' 

Knowing my dad, I quickly swallowed my food so that I would not choke on his response; knowing he would have a good one. And in classic style he did not bat an eye in his response, 'Got drunk once and had sex with a peacock. I was just wondering if you were my son.'

You CAN get pregnant

A woman went to her doctor for advice. She told him that her husband had developed a penchant for anal sex and she was not sure that it was such a good idea.

'Do you enjoy it?' The doctor asked.
'Well actually, yes, I do.', she exclaimed.
'Does it hurt you?' he asked.
'No. I rather like it.'
'Well, then,' the doctor continued, 'there's no reason that you shouldn't practice anal sex, if that's what you like, so long as you take care not to get pregnant.'
The woman was mystified....'What? You can get pregnant from anal sex?''
'Of course,' the doctor replied. 'Where do you think politicians come from'?