The new RIBI Health and Safety Policy document for Clubs and Districts has been distributed to each Club Secretary and District Health and Safety Officer.

It is an essential informative and useful document that each Club Health and Safety Officer should obtain from the Secretariat at RIBI at a cha rge of £1 or alternatively it can be downloaded from the Rotary website www.rotary-ribi.org

(also available on this site in the Membership Documents Section as RIBI Health + Safety Policy).

RI President-elect D.K.Lee has set us a target for 2008/09 of 10%.  Ten percent new members, and ten percent new clubs.  Keep that in mind when you hear the following points.

At the RIBI Conference in April resolutions were passed which will have major effects on the way that District Membership Committees operate.  In particular my governing RIBI committee is now the ‘Membership Development and Retention (including Extension) Committee’ – quite a mouthful!

Please consider some of the ideas below:

• Hold an open meeting at a different day and time to your customary meetings and hold it somewhere central to your location.

Perhaps on a Saturday morning in or near your town centre. Cater for families, so have some activities for children and have refreshments such as tea and coffee with squash for the younger visitors. Make it an open event and see if you can interest some potential members to attend a club meeting. 

The Committee is facing a major transition in the near future and much of my thinking has been directed to the implications of that change.

The committee is likely to be renamed the ‘Membership Committee’ and will deal essentially with membership development, retention and extension.