Rotary Club West Vancouver Sunrise - Service Committee Report 2013

Posted by Brian Martin 
on Jun 18, 2013
 
Service had a very successful year in 2012-13 and is well-positioned to go forward into the 2013-14 year.
 

Rotary Club West Vancouver Sunrise

Service Committee Report 2013

 

Service had a very successful year in 2012-13 and is well-positioned to go forward into the 2013-14 year. Seniors luncheon and community day both went well, we rejoined ORN along with the other North shore Rotary clubs and our participation was noticed. The wine festival and the ride for rescue both had success along with adoption of a slush fund permitted us to cover off smaller projects without having to pass the hat. Finally Ardath’s creation of a funding committee meant that projects could be reviewed and a short list easily created for the club. I recommend this continue into the future.

 

Challenges from the last year

 

Service had a number of challenges for the last year including a large list of items that are club would like to participate in however difficulty in completing them due to a small membership base. We also had major difficulties and missed out on some large online grants as we could not locate a member to take this on.

 

Going forward challenges include

  • A lack of committees to run events.

  • Projects were run as a one-person show (no continuity)

  • A urge to accommodate every request for funds or aid.

  • A club that I believe is at capacity for the number of events it takes on.

 

Successes for the year include

  • Individual members stepping up and taking ownership of projects

  • A very successful ride for Rotary including a restructuring on how the fundraising is done, along with a succession plan for the operating committee

  • Good definitions around our goals

  • Good definitions around the projects we would like to support

  • Acceptance by the club that not every worthy cause has to be supported by Rotary or can be and that we support different causes on each year for varying levels.

 

Goals for 2014

Obviously these are subject to Sam and his committee taking them on and challenging them however I would suggest the following

 

  • Three large fundraisers

    • Rotary ride for rescue

    • Wine festival,

    • Operation red nose.

  • Smaller service-based projects including

    • Seniors lunch

    • Community day

    • Helping with Christmas wrapping

    • Klahanie

    • Rotary Circle

    • Park Royal x-mas shopping night

    • Noorz

    • other ideas as they arise.

 

I believe the success of these programs will be based on the service committee’s ability to engage the entire club to participate. The service committee also needs to ensure that a diverse group of members run the different programs rather than the same people repeatedly stepping up. This has been a challenge in the past.

I would also propose that some fundraisers be hands off where we delegate the work to other organizations or clubs and we are simply responsible for collecting the fundraising and distributing the profits. This would be aimed at perhaps not raising quite as much at the same time not being as taxing on the membership. For the next year I have agreed to take on the role of applying for online grants to help get this aspect of the clubs fund raising back on track.

 

Budget

Currently the service committee doesn't have a firm budget as each project essentially raises and runs its own funds. The exception to that being the smaller projects I would recommend simply using last year's numbers. Until more firm budget requests can be assessed.

 

Overall

This section is not related to service per se but to the club as a whole. I believe that a couple of key items need to be addressed. We need to focus on several large fundraisers a year and several smaller service projects a year being careful not to overwhelm the club with too many projects. If we look to take on a project it will most likely come at the expense of a current project as opposed to simply adding to what is already an overwhelming list.

 

I am also concerned around our membership, by that I mean that I believe it's the club's duty as a whole to increase the number of guests we have coming out to the meetings and I don't believe this is being done. Rather one or two members are responsible for a majority of the guests. We often refer to the West Vancouver evening club as being simply a dinner club as their group has dropped to such a small number and size due to lack of new members and lack of revitalization in the club, my concern would be that we are not that far from them should we not attract new members and that we should have this as a focus in the coming year, the focus being on every member bring 4-8 guests a year, either potential members or simply guests.

 

As a final note I am excited by the real strength in the club going forwards both with the incoming leadership team and with the recent additions to membership.

 

My apologies and not being able to attend the final meeting and I look forward working with the new directors in 2013-14.

 

Brian Martin

June 18, 2013