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The Rotary Club of Medicine Hat welcomed 5360 District Governor for 2018 - 2019 Dan Doherty and his wife Marlene. Dan is a Past President of the Calgary West Rotary Club, where he has been an active member for over 30 years. Dan has a passion for advocating for and empowering youth, especially those without a voice. Dan is engages with the students at Tsuu Tina High School, as well as the aboriginal program at the Boys and Girls Club. He has travelled over a dozen times to Mexico to build homes as well as a Polio NID in Ethiopia and mission work in Uganda. Marlene is also a member of the Calgary West Rotary Club and has been both Club Secretary and Director of Services and Grants. She has done two NID polio trips in Ethiopia, two stove building trips in Guatemala and many trips to Mexico. Dan and Marlene have 4 children, 3 grandchildren and a black lab. DG Dan started his talk by thanking a number of Rotarians, Wayne Chesley for his work on the District Board, Sandy Mackay for being a mentor and a silent leader, as well as the Executive and Board of this Rotary club for investing in this club, and the community. He asked a number of questions of the Rotarians, including what we were most proud of as a club. He spoke about the challenges facing this District and Rotary in general, membership levels have fallen from 2200 to 1721 this year, including a loss of more than 100 last year. However he stressed that wasn't the biggest issue with those numbers. In that same time frame, Rotary inducted more than a 1000 new members, so the attrition rate is significant. Most new members don't make it 5 years, and many are gone in less than 2. A recent survey of past members was undertaken and the results were not encouraging. He summarized as follows. - Our Culture is Broken - Many felt they were respected, that power cliques of "old boys" didn't respect them.
- Our Structure is Intimidating - The expectation of meeting attendance, and cost/participation were daunting for new members.
- We Are Disconnected from our Community - Many who left felt we need to assess community and societal needs, we aren't engaged in the best ways of helping the community.
He finished by stating that we need to build on the foundation we have made, its good and solid, and renovate to making our clubs and the district more supportive and engaged with the community. We need to try something, to "shoot the puck", you don't score every time but you need to try. He invited everyone out to see the Rotary motorhome that is transporting he and Marlene around the District. |
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