Club assembly 17 June 2025

The Club has been very lucky over the past few years in the ways new members have joined Aireborough. This is a friendly Club which can be gauged by the atmosphere of any meeting. The challenge is in encouraging prospective members to cross the threshold. The onus is on every member to keep their eyes open, seizing on any opportunity with anyone who shows interest in volunteering and becoming involved in a new social network. Becoming a mini Richard Green wood would be A step in the right direction or maybe a step too far.

We have diversified optiona by setting up the Thursday Group. This was initially very successful bringing in the Club's first female members but has now morphed into a very important planning and reviewing meeting. This gain shows just how active we are in our community, part of the offer mentioned later.

Northstar sees bringing in Corporate members as one way to increase numbers. We now have to concentrate on just what is the offer or benefit we can describe to encourage individuals to join. Once they come into the Club our activities have to be good enough to retain them.

I have already approached Yorkshire Air Ambulance so that should be a good testing ground. I am happy to ask any company about Corporate Social Responsibility, hoping that our diverse activities both within our community and internationally can be of interest. Raising £21,000 in a year to aid 40 different charities is no mean feat.

My final thought is about making more use of events to spread the news about just what Aireborough Rotary is achieving. I know we have tried this at Rodley for the Easter Egg Hunt but a good display and some enthusiastic, persuasive salespeople are well worth a second attempt.

As a personal challenge I shall be responding to the email addressed to me as Membership Chair to undergo online training for my new role.

Robert Mirfield rmirfield@virginmedia.com

The Rotary year runs from 1 July to 30 June. Each Area of Focus Leader now prepares two reports for the Club. For April's Annual General  Meeting this covers what has been achieved over the past year and for the Club Assembly in June outlines plans for the coming year. Last year's reports follow.

Pictures show our three newest members Tony and Evelyn Cape and Mark Whitfield

Plan for 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024

Membership Group Team Leader John Kitching:

Over the last year Aireborough Rotary have lost 4 members of the club and have welcomed 1 new member and 1 transfer in from another club. As with the great majority of clubs it is therefore essential to attract new members.

It is also evident over the last year that several of our members feel that they have been unable to take as active a roll in Club events as they have previously or that they would like. Whilst other more active members work hard, along with several our ‘Friends’ generating full membership from this source is proving more and more difficult.

We recognise that maintaining and increasing membership is essential for any group or charity and is a challenge for all not only the Rotary movement. It is proposed that we investigate and utilise new and innovative methods to encourage membership i.e. family membership, staged membership.

We will continue to engage with our Friends of Rotary towards full membership of the Aireborough Rotary and seek further opportunities to increase their number and their involvement to encourage them to take a fuller role.

It is my intention to work with the Youth team to encourage an Interact club at 1 of our 4 senior schools in the next year, highlighting the advantages to the school and their pupils. If successful a Rotakids club could also be encouraged at one of the primary schools. Support from members for both ventures would be appreciated and over the next few months I intend to have a meeting to discuss what this would mean to members, our club and what I see as the potential benefits we could reap.

Our aim is, as always, to maintain high visibility, to inform and attract new and younger members to our club working within the guidelines of social engagement handed down to us by Rotary International, increasing our membership and our impact in our community.

                   CLUB ASSEMBLY STATEMENT -PLANS FOR 2022/23

Our plans for increasing membership were disrupted in 2020-2021 but were back on track in the last Rotary year. In the last 2 years we have lost 4 Club members so recruitment of new members is essential for the whole Rotary movement.This will ensure that the Club is able to maintain its programme of both projects and fund-raising events over the coming year demonstrating the impact the Club can have within our community

.The good news is that two new members, Jan Morley and Nicola Thornton have been welcomed into the Club in the last two months.

The membership team has been meeting on a regular basis working on ways to encourage new membership and will be rolling out its plan as the year progresses. Friends of Rotary continue to be seen as potential members.

We will continue to maintain high visibility aiming to inform and attract new and younger members working within the guidelines of more social engagement and the different opportunities afforded by new ways of joining Rotary. 

REPORT FOR THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING – 19 APRIL2022

Our current membership is: 

 33 Active members + 4 Corporate members and 5 honorary members.

We are currently discussing an Action Plan intending to increase our membership. Implementation is targeted for 1 July or sooner dependent upon progress. We have been disappointed with the lack of interest in membership uptake over the last two years but feel this is understandable given the overall circumstances.

The membership team is concentrating upon looking forwards and not back with new and interesting ways to encourage individuals to join Rotary and engage in local and international projects.

The hopes we had of starting a Rotaract Club at Leeds Trinity University have not come to fruition but all is not lost and we hope to restart recruitment in the near future.

Friends of Aireborough Rotary have been involved, interested and active in many of our events and now events are once again up and running, will be encouraged to volunteer to help at them.