Be UNLIMITED

It is now the time when the leadership in the District changes as part of the Rotary continuum. I have paused to take a deep breath, clear the mind and prepare for the implementation of District 2020/21 strategic plans.  For two years, the core team and I have been crafting this.

We have a District strategy that has been widely shared with all the Clubs and which has and should guide them in crafting their strategies. Club Strategic Plans will align with that of the District and Rotary International.   More importantly, it addresses the needs of the communities in which they plan to serve and also that of their supporting stakeholders.

The top three priorities for our Rotary District in the year 2020/21 will be Membership Growth, Foundation, and Increasing our Impact.

On Membership…

We plan to increase membership in the District by 50% of the number of members as of the 1st of July 2020. We will do this by focusing on three fronts.

The first will be the growth in clubs. We intend to use the six Rotary models as the basis for designing clubs that are appropriate for the communities where we seek to form new clubs. We will blend the club types, if necessary, and will also not shy away from creating innovative club types.  We plan to increase the number of clubs by 20%.

The second is to grow the number of members in clubs. Membership growth will be achieved by each club looking at the key strategic thrusts for the year and finding out the gaps that the club has in the vocations needed to deliver on the action plans for the year. The new members who join will thus get into action immediately.  We will also ensure that the expectations of the new members and the needs of the club match.  New members who join Rotary will then stay on for the long run.

On Foundation …

Our contributions to The Rotary Foundation must be elevated to support the impact of grants and the work of polio in the District.  To boost our contribution to The Rotary Foundation we plan to have all clubs in the District to be 100% giving clubs.

As a minimum, each club will meet the requirements of Every Rotarian Every Year. Club Presidents have also committed to having at least 10% of their membership as of the 1st of July 2020 contributing as Paul Harris Fellows. It would be wonderful if each one of our nearly 3000 members in the District gave to the Rotary Foundation.

The management of grants in the District will move from normal to exemplary. Every dollar, birr, pound, or shilling that is provided towards doing good in the communities we operate in will be “sweated” to the maximum. Heightened compliance and scrutiny of delivery will be the order of the day.

On Increasing our Impact…

During the just-concluded Rotary year,  District 9212 has been able to conclude six partnership agreements. We intend to leverage these partnerships to expand the impact of the programs and projects that we do in  District 9212. We will also do extensive monitoring and evaluation of all the interventions that we do in our communities to demonstrate the returns of the social capital deployed.

We will work with the clubs and with our media partners to spread the knowledge about what Rotary is and does directly to the communities where each club is implementing programs. This publicity will deepen the understanding of what Rotary is doing but we hope that it will also reach people in those communities interested in joining Rotary.

The changes in the Rotary District leadership structure that have taken place this year will achieve several things. The Cluster arrangements will provide better support to clubs through faster response to any queries and bring technical assistance closer to the clubs. The interaction between clubs to better share knowledge will be enhanced.

This exercise is not complete as we are currently designing the programmatic support that will be available to the clubs. The structure will align with the Rotary’s now Seven Areas of Focus.  The Rotary District 9212 will also launch three Sustainable District-wide intervention opportunities that clubs can tap in to and create a lasting impact in our communities.,

I will end this first timeline piece by sincerely thanking our outgoing District Governor Joe Otin for his unwavering support during the last two years. His advice and counsel have been invaluable as we have built our action plan for the coming year. 

Joe laid the foundation stone for the restructuring of the district leadership intending to make it more responsive to the needs of the Our great District. It is this initiative that has allowed the incoming District Leadership Team – the ExCo – to finish off the changes in the ways that we will be supporting our clubs in this District going forward. I would also like to appreciate the whole of the district executive committee that served under Joe as they have set a good example for the way forward. Quite a in the team number will continue with me in the coming year to ensure continuity in leadership at the district level.

I look forward to the continued support and camaraderie that is already building up from District Governor Nominee Alex Nyaga and the District Governor Nominee Designate Azeb Asrat.

To my fellow Rotarians as we start the new Rotary Year let us remember that everything that we do opens an opportunity for someone, somewhere and that is why our Rotary Theme for the year is Rotary Opens Opportunities,  and in our District, we choose to  # Be Unlimited