Driving membership growth
Rtn Mrunalini, the Charter President of Rotary Club of Mayur, D3131, was excited to be a part of Rotary and was further enthused after attending the New Member Orientation Meet at Pune on January 17, co-hosted by Rotary Club of Pune Gandhi Bhavan and its newly sponsored club, RC Pune Sahyadri. The seminar aimed to provide new members from various Rotary clubs of the District, the ABCs of Rotary and its service projects across the world. Such knowledge is essential to retain membership and motivate Rotarians to work for the welfare of society.
The Meet, aptly titled Maitri, encouraged strong ties of friendship not only among the attendees, but also with Rotary itself, which is vital for membership retention.
An excited Mrunalini said, “The seminar touched upon all aspects of Rotary. It made me realise the magnitude of the organisation that has members all over the world. We learnt lessons on how to conduct weekly meetings; how to make them interesting and interactive so that members look forward to attend them. It gave us the overall big picture and made us feel proud to be part of something so wonderful. We got a fair idea about what projects to take up.”
Similar feedback was echoed by several other green Rotarians. About 350 new members attended the Meet and this drew appreciative response from the Past District Governors and the chief guest, PRID Shekhar Mehta. “This is probably a milestone in Rotary,” he said. His address urged the delegates to “adopt meaningful projects that can bring significant changes to the society, for which you will be remembered forever.” He stressed on the need to reach out to the generous donors to assist the neediest in the society.
Earlier, District Governor Vivek Aranha welcomed the delegates. The first session was about Club Service, conducted by ARC Deepak Shikarpur along with Rotarians Ujjwala Barve,Vasunt Malunjkar and Madhavi Mehendale. Significant stress was given to new member induction, fellowship, club bulletin and weekly programmes. The next session, ‘Community Service,’ conducted by PDG Mohan Palesha along with other panellists Manoj Ghoake,Shekhar Malvad and Vaishali Bhagvat threw light on community projects such as mammography and affordable dialysis, Happy Villages and literacy.
PDG Prashanth Deshmukh, Shailesh Palekar and Dilip Kumbhokar emphasised the significance of Vocational Service and International Service under Youth Exchange programme, while PDG Mahesh Kotbagi gave details of the upcoming South Asia Literacy Summit to be held during February at Pune and encouraged the freshers to register for the event.
Thanks to such initiatives, D3131 has shown substantial membership growth and is lauded by Rotary senior leaders.
