Rotary Club of Keilor
Membership Plan 2020-21
Draft for discussion
Marketing 101:  When there is a sales problem it usually indicates a problem with the Marketing and the Sales Team, or a problem with the Product.
The lack of new members in the past few years indicates that we have a serious problem.
Marketing
There will always be opportunities to improve Marketing and Sales, but all that they can do is to get people interested in our club and create the initial contact.
We need to examine our promotional tools and improve their effectiveness where we can.  It’s also essential that our Sales Team – All Members use the tools we provide and make people who may be interested, aware of the great things we are doing and how they can get involved.
I am proposing that our website and Facebook should focus on being attractive to potential members.  The information our member need will still be available, but it will be presented in a way that the public understands.   Where appropriate articles should have a call to action
Projects – are the great things we are planning to do this year, but our call to action is - we can accomplish more with your help.  A new promotional tool will be a Quarterly Newsletter, which will outline our plans for the next year, some great Guest Speakers, project opportunities, fellowship opportunities and some of the highlights from the previous three months.
We need to commit to our major projects for up to the next two years well before Changeover to allow for their inclusion in our website and to produce the first Quarterly Newsletter.  Next year will be challenging and our aim should be to obtain as much funding as possible from external sources.  The two-year framework allows us to have projects prepared when grant opportunities appear.
Guest Speakers – we need to promote them in advance and encourage the public to come and listen to something that will interest them.  Our members need to decide who they want as Guest Speakers, but we need to consider how interesting they would be for a guest.  The Membership position is that if they would not appeal to a visitor and we can’t provide promotional material to encourage people to join us, why bother.  But no matter how exciting our Guest Speakers and our Projects are, unless our members are prepared to promote them no one will know about them. 
Where possible we will produce an invitation for each Guest Speaker; the rest is up to you.
Our Club
We need to become more attractive to potential members.  While keeping our current members happy and engaged, being attractive to potential members is more important.
Projects – it up to our members to decide which projects they want to do, but we need to be very aware that what we are currently doing does not appeal to new members.  If we are not prepared to change our project mix, include things that will strongly appeal to potential members and provide them with ways to get involved, we are wasting our time.
We need to offer a wide range of projects to attract as wide a range of potential members as possible, but there is a limit on how many projects we can run.  The public tend to classify projects as Local, Australian and International and this is the way that we will present our projects.  When we establish our priorities, we should reserve some funds to find project partnership projects to fill in the holes.  We need to consider partnerships with adjacent Clubs particularly for local hands on projects.  They run the project and we help a little with funds and labour.  We should expect local clubs to reciprocate.
I think we need to be partners in some major projects – Global Grants, Centennial Projects, etc. Invest $500 each in 4-6 projects that will allow us to promote “We are helping to XXX”.
We should have a serious discussion with Brimbank Council to identify their project priorities in our local area.  If we find a project, we like we should offer to be partners, with our contribution mainly being our management expertise, our contacts and to a small extent labour and funding. 
Club Meetings – the 1st and 3rd meetings each month should be run as Membership Meetings.  We need to minimise the things that would have little relevance to a guest and highlight the positives.  The Quarterly Newsletter will be on the table at all meetings.  When we have guests, we need to promote upcoming events and invite the guest to get involved. 
The 2nd Tuesday will be a Club Meeting normally with no guests unless they are involved in a project being discussed.
Fellowship Events – will normally take place late in the month and our effectiveness in this area is critical for Membership.  The focus should be on fun and friendship.  It could be any type of social event with minimal Rotary content.  They should be events where friends are welcome, with no pressure or membership expectations.
Guest Speakers – we want them to become advocates for our club and encourage them to be more involved.  The Guest Speaker gift will be in our Supermarket bag which will also contain our Quarterly Newsletter and a copy of RDU.
Partners – we need to make it easy for partners to be involved in our activities if they wish and at a level that suits them.  If they wish they should be able to join a committee or be a partner in a project.
 
 
 
          Our Membership Goal
We need to find a way to recruit 6-8 new members every year.  The retention rate is lower for high numbers of inductions and this would result in 3-4 members after two years.  Many of our existing members are elderly and it is realistic to anticipate losing 1-2/ year.  Six new members this year will represent a net gain of 1-2 members in two years’ time.
We can anticipate very few new members from personal contacts, so we need to find alternate ways to recruit.   I think we have the following target markets.
  • People 50 – 65 who are currently employed.  We look at classifications and try to fill the holes.  Business Networking may be important for this group.
  • We can target three people as Honorary Members.  Which projects would benefit from having additional people with specific expertise?  They can only retain their Honorary Membership for two years and after this period if they have enjoyed their participation there is a probability some will become full members.   Being involved in projects that interest them will be important.
People approaching retirement / recently retired
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