Ideas from Zone Institute 2012 - We're in a Category of ONE!
Posted by Geoffrey James
on Dec 5, 2012
Meryl & I were fortunate enough to enjoy a very stimulating 6 days in Adelaide last week at Rotary's Zone Institute.
For those who don't know, the Zone Institute happens in November each year and brings together District Governors, past District Governors and District Governors in training from the 22 Districts of Australia, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Before the Institute which happens from Friday to Sunday, three full days are spent training DG's, DGE's (Governor elects) and DGN's in separate groupings. Our group of DGN's were fortunate enough to have PDG Jessie Harmon as one of our trainers, and needless to say, the training was excellent.
Over the next few bulletins, I want to share some of the stimulating info. we encountered during the Institute and the Pre-institute training sessions. I want to start at the end.
On Sunday morning, I heard, for the first time, past Rotary International President, Bill Boyd from New Zealand. Bill told us about a survey that had been conducted in recent years where over 10,000 people from all walks of life were asked about their knowledge of Rotary - only 50% had heard of Rotary and less than a third knew what it did. So Rotary asked an independent marketing company to analyze the Rotary brand and media presence in detail. They revealed 3 problems: Rotarians use their own "language" with acronyms and terms like "Sergeant at arms" which give quite misleading ideas about us. Our writing style - in our media - is stilted, and our publications tell "how" to do things, but not why people should bother joining us.
However, the marketing company found 4 reasons why Rotary is absolutely unique and special in a world of over 25,000 Charity organizations - and I found this quite exciting. First, we are the only group based around "leaders" in our community. Not only that, but we are regarded as ethical and responsible leaders. This makes us special because leaders from different job classifications bring a whole range of viewpoints to humanitarian work - a great strength. Secondly, because we come from different job areas, we have the leadership skills to carry through our projects ourselves. Thirdly, Rotarians have incredible perseverance and passion - clearly shown by our work on Polio eradication since 1985! Finally, we're doing community service on a global basis - we work locally as well as in 200 countries of the world.
No other service organization has these qualities - we are in a category of ONE!
For those who don't know, the Zone Institute happens in November each year and brings together District Governors, past District Governors and District Governors in training from the 22 Districts of Australia, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Before the Institute which happens from Friday to Sunday, three full days are spent training DG's, DGE's (Governor elects) and DGN's in separate groupings. Our group of DGN's were fortunate enough to have PDG Jessie Harmon as one of our trainers, and needless to say, the training was excellent.
Over the next few bulletins, I want to share some of the stimulating info. we encountered during the Institute and the Pre-institute training sessions. I want to start at the end.
On Sunday morning, I heard, for the first time, past Rotary International President, Bill Boyd from New Zealand. Bill told us about a survey that had been conducted in recent years where over 10,000 people from all walks of life were asked about their knowledge of Rotary - only 50% had heard of Rotary and less than a third knew what it did. So Rotary asked an independent marketing company to analyze the Rotary brand and media presence in detail. They revealed 3 problems: Rotarians use their own "language" with acronyms and terms like "Sergeant at arms" which give quite misleading ideas about us. Our writing style - in our media - is stilted, and our publications tell "how" to do things, but not why people should bother joining us.
However, the marketing company found 4 reasons why Rotary is absolutely unique and special in a world of over 25,000 Charity organizations - and I found this quite exciting. First, we are the only group based around "leaders" in our community. Not only that, but we are regarded as ethical and responsible leaders. This makes us special because leaders from different job classifications bring a whole range of viewpoints to humanitarian work - a great strength. Secondly, because we come from different job areas, we have the leadership skills to carry through our projects ourselves. Thirdly, Rotarians have incredible perseverance and passion - clearly shown by our work on Polio eradication since 1985! Finally, we're doing community service on a global basis - we work locally as well as in 200 countries of the world.
No other service organization has these qualities - we are in a category of ONE!