BBRC – One of a Few

President-Elect Norm Johnson

Norm Johnson, President-Elect for 2004-2005, has taken the lead in exploring an opportunity for the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club to participate in a three-year pilot program for membership development and retention.

Known as the “RI Membership Retention Pilot Program,” the BBRC has been invited to submit an application to participate in a Rotary International sponsored Membership Retention Pilot Program. This program will select three clubs from each Rotary zone, for a total of 102 clubs worldwide.

The purpose is to identify effective retention programs or activities for Rotary clubs for new and current members and to assess the effectiveness of such programs in various regions of the Rotary world. The time frame for the project is July 2003 to June 2006.

Approval is required by this Club’s Board of Directors, which was obtained at the last board meeting on January 14, and by a vote of two-thirds of the Club’s membership. The vote will take place this coming Friday morning. The application will then be forwarded to the District Governor and then to Rotary International.

Primary points of the project:

• Identify and inform qualified potential new members from the community of the benefits of Rotary membership.
• Formalize the New Members Coordination effort by assigning a club mentor, as well as a sponsor.
• Develop a formal orientation and induction process to introduce a new member to the club members and the four avenues of service.
• Engage the current membership in a continuing Rotary education process.

Existing members would be impacted by the requirement of the application in regard to participation by the membership. Members will be offered the opportunity to mentor new members. Members will be involved in a continuing process of Rotary learning. Many of the proposed activities of the pilot program are already in place at the BBRC. It is a natural extension of what we are already doing, but on a more formalized basis.

Please contact Brian Evison, Norm Johnson, or Jenny Andrews for additional information.