Contact: Ian Coat

Email: ian.coat.ri@gmail.com
Phone Number: 0428 642 572
Specialist: Liz McDougall
Ticket Created: January 21, 2025
Status: Open
Several of us in old District 9510 have been pondering how to deal with the thorny question of increasing impact and exposure of Rotary. There is a proposal to join forces amongst as large a group of Clubs as practicable, and act in a coherent manner in responding to a community need. By being coherent, the funds and actions of multiple clubs can have a more significant and hopefully NEWSWORTHY effect. This addresses both impact and exposure. Coherence requires communication, and this is where the plan appears to falter. Regionalisation has pushed responsibility to act to the Club level. At a Club level, there appears to be very limited ability to communicate effectively. RCLs have visibility across their respective community and could communicate to some degree. However, it is clear that this no their role. Ideally, we would like to see a mechanism to self-form communities of interest. In the past, I have communicated with Microsoft to consider whether we could attain Not For Profit (NFP) accounts in order to access tools like Teams and Sharepoint as a means to communicate much more freely across the Zone. The recent Vanuatu earthquake was a prime example. I am sure many clubs responded immediately by giving to Red Cross and the other charities and RAWCS when they put up the new project. These donation where probably mostly modest in nature and went unheralded. We tried to light a fire under the some of the local D9510 clubs to band together, make a larger donation and seek an opportunity to be seen to have an effect. That was a hard ask, especially with pressure to donate fast, whilst knowing that these charities are really in it for the long haul. Their charitable works tend to focus on the rebuilding phase over months and years rather than the response phase measured in hours and days. Ultimately no coherent giving occurred. But it was a wake up call to a different way for Clubs to behave. My request of you and the specialist team, is to: * consider how Clubs can rapdily self form into communities of interest; * how a Zone wide disaster response could be coordinated to give maximum impact and exposure * how Clubs can approach media outlets and develop coherent stories to present * whether there are any best practice tales out there already to address these questions? Ian Coat

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