Thanks to your efforts this year, I believe the Salem area is slowly becoming more familiar with Rotary Club of Salem. This is starting to lead to more online inquiries about membership in our Club. What a great opportunity to expand our reach and our membership! And in turn, this has led us to adapt to a slightly different procedure for bringing in new members.
As you know, the more traditional way to bring in new members is by referral and sponsorship by a current Club member. Before an invitation to join our Club is offered, the prospective member’s name is circulated to Club membership for a period of two weeks. If anyone has an objection to going ahead with that membership offer, it is made known during that time. It has been very rare that any objections have been voiced. But when they are, it can be a potentially serious ethical issue.
After two weeks with no objections, the sponsor continues working with the prospective member toward an induction date. But, what happens if the initial contact was made by online inquiry? Usually this is a name we haven’t heard – it could be from a brand-new resident of our area. The Membership Committee and your Board has decided that we still need to circulate the name to our membership for two weeks.
At that point, the Membership Committee would like to have someone step forward and carry out the important role of sponsor for this prospective new member. So, if you read an email from Membership Committee that cites a name as an “online inquiry,” that means you should step up adopt them as a sponsor!
Membership growth is a major goal of incoming President Elect Steve Ickes. With six weeks left to go in our Rotary year, I believe we can still grow our head count by as much as 8 individuals. But, there isn’t much time left. If you are partway through the sponsorship process with a great new prospective member, please make this a high priority. I will make room for inductions and double-inductions on my meeting agendas between now and June 30th. Let’s finish our year STRONG!
This week’s club meeting: Student Leadership. The Students of the Month from South Salem High School and North Salem High School will run this Rotary Meeting. Our inbound exchange student from India will present her experiences from her exchange program.
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