Membership

Membership Services 2025/26

We believe that It is important to realise that attracting new members is inextricably linked to development of a vibrant, attractive club that prospective members would like to join and would recommend to their friends and associates.  

Any effective membership plan cannot be developed in isolation but needs to be developed with due consideration of, and input from the other teams. We need to haves a joined up approach to promoting our club as an attractive proposition to prospective members. We need to sell the product.

It is within this context that I suggest the following ideas.

Set Goals for Membership

• Set up goals for membership on Rotary Club Central e.g. how many members do we plan to attract this year?

How are we doing?

• At the end of this presidential year, produce a review of the year- organisations helped, money raised for local charities, youth sponsorship, community activities, social events. This will be useful for publicity and for our membership campaign. Celebrate success!

How can I become involved in Rotary

• Produce summary card giving details of types of Membership/ involvement
• Encourage participation in project based working. Prospective members could volunteer to help for just a few hours a week to fit in with their lifestyle. Some of these could result in future members.
• Comments /Reviews from new members about their experience of our Club
• Why I Joined Rotary statements from existing members
• Ensure we have female members giving their perspective – must ensure we do not promote an image of a male only club.

Broaden Scope

• What groups of people are NOT engaged with Rotary. Try and meet some and find out why they are not attracted. They may have some wrong assumptions and would provide useful input to our recruitment campaign

Promotion & Publicity

• Articles in Ashby Life
• Produce a Rotary Membership flyer.
• Wallet cards with club contact details
• Strategic use of social media – encourage posts of things we are doing to make a difference – particularly in the local area.
• Ensure we adopt a less formal approach where possible. We should try to dispel the image that we all dress up in suits or dinner suits. Many younger prospective members may not even own a lounge suit or a dinner suit
• Could we consider approaching the town Council about erecting signs at key entry points to the town with the Rotary Logo and ‘A Rotary Town’ 
• New Houses: Leave leaflets at builders show home offices 
• Ensure any ‘What to do in Ashby’ publications include our club

Meetings

• Suggest we have two Open Evenings in the year. It would be sensible to align the dates for these with periods where we have had high public visibility in the town. Invite a broad range of prospective members or organisations who may have prospective members.
• Ask all existing members to look at their contacts / associates and identify prospective members and invite them to attend meetings as guests. We should expect far more Guests at our meetings.
• We should have more Invited Speakers for meetings – not just those from charities. Selecting a speaker on a topic of wide interest would provide more interest for existing members and also an opportunity for inviting more guests.

Youth

• Encourage youth volunteers on projects – some of these may be future members
• Use existing Youth Competitions as a platform to ensure that participants are fully aware of the support and encouragement Rotary gives to young people

Corporate Membership Campaign

• Engage local businesses and have an open evening to present the advantages of Corporate membership for both them and us. 
• Have we got an existing Corporate Member who could come along and give their experience of being a Corporate member?
• This could help generate more sponsorship and also result in more volunteers to work on our projects
• Consider buying some T shirts with ‘I Support Rotary’ printed on them. Maybe a business would sponsor those?

Social Events – Rotary is fun!

• Ensure we have some fun social events that we could invite prospective members to. 
  • A Karaoke competition?
  • Music Quiz -play song intros and guess song and artist. This could be attractive to younger prospective members.
  • Other Quizzes
  • Rotary Summer Picnic