The Westerner for July 16, 2012
Meeting: Chair - Rob; Music - Jerome; Grace - Jim
Attendance / Guests - 34, including Peter Masson, North Scarborough, Miao Tsai, Ottawa, Nadine Fulmer, Edmonton NE, Kendra & Jason Bartley, Niwot, Colorado, Doug Campbell, St. Albert, Ashley Lundin, Duane Treacy
Announcements:
Doug Campbell from the Rotary Club of St. Albert is our new Assistant District Governor for this year.
Kendra Bartley and Rob Dunseith did a club flag exchange. The Bartleys son is now working in northern Alberta so they expect to be visiting this area fairly frequently in the future.
Jerome reminded us of the Lazy River Quintette concert at Grandview on Tuesday evening. Come about 6:30 pm. The music begins at 7:00 pm and refreshments will be served after.
The Board of Directors will be meeting at the Petroleum Club on Wednesday at 5:30. Any member is welcome to attend.
Forms for making a donation to the Windsor Block at Fort Edmonton Park are available.
Duane passed around an envelope for members to make a donation to the Kindles for Belize fund.
Catharine made an appeal for volunteers to work the front desk for the month of August.
Grocery cards are available from Brian. We make an 8% profit by selling these cards. You have to eat, so why not use them to purchase your groceries?
50/50 Draw. Bill Buckham and Doug MacDougall did not match, so $47.50 carries forward.
Finemaster Bill Buckham fined those who golfed (just jealous because he can't!), those who are missing the Al Hamilton Golf Classic, those who are not on any committee, those who didn't get hailed on, those who have air conditioning, those who had no guests, Al Sanderson for his attitude, President Rob for being President, and Chris for hogging the guests.
Catharine Wright introduced Chad Banman who is the owner of Sandler Training in Edmonton.
The secondary title for his presentation is "How can we keep Rotary relevant and grow membership?"
Chad quoted an article from Success Magazine that said "The number one life skill is the ability to sell." He believes this to be true even though sales has a bad reputation with many people. We all need to be able to sell our ideas to others in order to succeed.
As Rotarians, in order to convince a younger demographic to join Rotary, we probably will have to change the way we are selling the advantages of being Rotarians. Chad related the story of South Pole explorers Scott and Edmonson. Edmonson succeeded in his bid but Scott failed. The big difference between them was in the preparation for the actual trip. Edmonson biked 2,000 km to build his strength, ate raw Dolphin meat and lived with the Innuit to see how they cope with the cold. Scott did little preparation and wound up dead just 10 miles from his cache of food.
So, if we are going to succeed in selling Rotary to others, we need to prepare. We need to develop a story that is based on emotion because that is what impresses others. You can't just talk about the great things Rotary does as an organization, you need to say what Rotary means to you and why.
Steve McEachern thanked Chad for his presentation, using emotion to talk about the recent Paul Harris Fellowship award winners and the special efforts those people made as Rotarians.