Visiting Rotarians included Rick Olson from the Prior Lake club. He wanted to announce the opportunity for Rotarians to join in Eastern European tours prior to the Rotary International convention in Hamburg, Germany. If interested in a European tour prior to the convention, please contact him at olson48176@gmail.com. Larry Morgan, as a retired former #10 member, also visited the club today.
 

John Chandler talked about the upcoming events including the annual joint club #9 and #10 meeting which will have Rotary International President-Elect, Mark Maloney speaking to the membership. If any one is interested in doing a make-up meeting with another club locally, please let President John know about it, so we can further promote this opportunity for Rotarians within out district to hear from the RI President-Elect.  The mid-term Rotary district 5960 meeting will be held on 1/12 at Hamline. Please register soon for a free lunch and learn more about what Rotary is doing within the district and elsewhere.
 

On 2/24, we will have a Rotary night out with the Minnesota “Wild” versus the St Louis Blues, an email will be sent shortly with the details. 
 

Al Zdrazil also introduced himself as a director Emeritus of the current Rotary board. He was the St. Paul #10 president in 2008-09. Al enjoys meeting Rotarians from around the world. He was a Peace Corp volunteer in Lesotho in 1969-71 and hitchhiked around Africa after his stint in Lesotho. He even climbed Mt Kilimanjaro from the opposite side that tourists normally walk to the top. He is retired from the Minnesota Attorney General’s office. He loves to travel and enjoys Japanese drumming

Today we as a club discussed the following topics relative to membership:

#1 What keeps you engaged & participating in Rotary?

#2 Why do you think members are not referring new members?

#3 What ideas do you have to attract/recruit new members?
 

Michael-jon Pease wrote down a number of suggestions relative to the questions above.

#1 – People Networking, Friends, Speakers, Social opportunities and involvement with the community

#2 – Competition for time and money, companies in the past wanted to invest in the community, but are less likely today, people may want to be involved in a “project” versus a meeting

#3 – More community service projects for shorter periods of time, Happy Hours are fun to meet a smaller group of Rotarians and interact with various people rather than at lunch, Retiring members should try to find a replacement from their company to continue the tradition of a Rotary membership

We had a few minutes for some “Happy Dollars” from members. Dave Dominick promoted next week’s speaker as Glen Gunderson, the CEO of the YMCA in the Twin Cities area.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:20.