Rotary Club of Perth - Valedictory 2008President David Anderson - VALEDICTORY ADDRESS: 26th June 2008
It is customary for the President, at the end of his year in office, to deliver a farewell address – so this is the week Presidents look forward to the most.
What do I say! Obviously it is a great honour to be elected President of the Rotary Club of Perth. However, the club is a team, and the success or otherwise of the year reflects on the efforts of all the members working together, achieving results, doing good work and having fun.
Have we had a successful year? If you recall I set out objectives for the year.
The first was to increase membership.
I had identified this as a critical issue when elected SVP. The membership sub-committee were very active last year, without achieving great results. However their efforts have produced results this year as we have inducted 10 new members. It is not a numbers game, but regeneration has to be a continuous process and larger attendances at our meetings create more of a buzz and atmosphere. We have had two resignations in the course of the year, both for very good reasons. Resignations are inevitable, and this is another reason for the membership drive to be ongoing.
The second objective was continuity
to provide a stable organisational structure, establishing a rolling 3 of past present and future conveners to cover all circumstances and eventualities. I’m not sure if everyone understood or picked up on what we were trying to establish, but as it was a hobby horse of Bill Montgomery I am sure he will continue to indoctrinate office bearers in the coming year.
The third, and the most important objective was to facilitate innovation.
Each committee was asked to introduce at least one new idea. I felt that if we did the same old things year after year the activities become boring and dull. We need to keep pushing the boat out, to provide challenges to maintain the interest of members and provide an opportunity for new members to be properly integrated into the club.
The decision to move the Charity Fayre outside in August and to run the Silent Auction independently proved successful. The Fayre, blessed with great weather, gave everybody an opportunity to work together, and the involvement of other organizations added to the impact of the event. The Silent Auction proved an exciting challenge for those involved. We are now working on the lessons we learned from this year, but I feel this is a project we need every member of the club to be involved in. It was a great success and the trick next year will be to solicit a large number of interesting and can’t buy items to catch the imagination of the public again. Every member can do this.
On the vocational side the Enable Project was a good hands on exercise, it was just a pity the matching grant was not achieved earlier in the year. On the fellowship side the trip to Ireland was a first, and the pub games night was most enjoyable.
But probably the change instigated this year that will have most impact on our club is the decision to hold our meetings somewhere other than the Quality Hotel. Hamish has been on holiday, but is now back and the sub committee is on the case. Watch this space!
My fourth objective was to establish mentoring for new members. This has been looked at by the fellowship convener, but it was decided no formal scheme is required. Proposers are responsible for their new member being comfortable in the first week or two, and the whole club is responsible for welcoming new recruits and helping them to find their feet. I am also aware of mentoring carried out in the course of the year by the fellowship convener and others to help members with personal problems .This demonstrates we are all aware of this issue and will deal with it in the spirit of Rotary .
My final objective was to ensure all members participated in the activities of the club.
I am convinced that what you get out of rotary is directly proportional to what you put in to it. I do think that some members are missing out. Perhaps they cannot attend regularly, or they are not golfers, fishers or curlers. I think it is down to the conveners to give these members jobs to do to get them more involved.
There are plenty of things to do –
I am sure Robin could have used a food critic contributing to the Bulletin, or Sandy a financial director for the golf, and with a bit of lateral thinking conveners could delegate more to create bigger teams and strengthen the club at the same time.
On reflecting on our Rotary year, which had the slogan Rotary Shares, the recurring theme struck me as partnership.
Our Charity Fayre we were involved with 14 organizations, some such as the Walled Garden and Bowerswell, long standing liaisons and others new partnerships.
Mike Hope has established an ongoing relationship with Dobbie’s. with our Wishing Well, the Christmas cash collections and the hanging basket evening.
Our link with the Balcraig Foundation was strengthened with Karen McLeary’s report on Grace Njoki and our response to her moving appeal for Kelvin loaves.
Our links with King James VI Golf Club have been enhanced, with the visit of their Captain Ray Smethurst and our recognition of their 150th Anniversary.
Our partnership with the PA raised an unprecedented amount for us to give to McMillan Cancer Support. There was criticism from some members that it was the PA Silent Auction and not ours, but by then end of the event we had also received great publicity from it.
I hope that all these partnerships will continue to be nurtured and flourish in the years ahead – and others established.
Throughout the year we have has excellent publicity in the press. Developing our web site was to be a challenge, and will continue to be so. Jimmy still bears the complete burden of maintaining this, but I hope he will soon be able to appoint sub editors that can assist him.
At the beginning of the year the interaction between the web site and bulletin was debated. It was established that the web site was the public face of the club and the bulletin was private. Robin has continued to produce and excellent publication, but has struggled to get contributions. I know PR Convener Bill Duncan is reviewing these issues and I wish him luck.
Memories of the year.
Ewan Bannerman’s indignation at criticism of his raffle prizes – but Ewan had a point – it was up to the members to come up with decent prizes.
The Fayre – we were lucky with the weather but it was a great day with most members there.
Speakers Fiona McGilvery from Enable and Karen McLeary from Balcraig really brought home to me how lucky we are.
The club dinner, which I thought was a most enjoyable evening.
Standing for an hour at Dobbie’s collecting money from the Christmas shoppers – and later that night hearing from Mike the amount we had raised.
The last end of the Young Bowlers competition. These youngsters can bowl. A pity there were not more Rotarians there to see them.
Steve Mannions grace at the club assembley
And the Monday after the Silent Auction, wondering how I was going to get rid of all the items that had been deposited in my office on the Saturday night.
In conclusion I must thank my council for their advice and support, particularly Louis, for ensuring that nothing went through unopposed, Ian MacMillan and Alastair Dorward, who provided wise advice and undertook the difficult jobs Vice president Bill for deputizing for me when required, and of course Secretary Robbie, who has kept all recent Presidents on the straight and narrow.
I think that all the conveners have done an excellent job, and the whole club has been supportive and positive throughout the year. Fellow rotarians, thank you for allowing me to be your President for the past year, and I hope I have carried out my responsibilities adequately.
I now have great pleasure in fulfilling my final duty by handing over the chain of office to the President of The Rotary Club of Perth for 2008/2009 – Bill Montgomery.