Speaker - Tom Griffin (on Zoom)

This week’s meeting saw a good attendance of club members and also a number of guests from other clubs including St Andrews and North Berwick. 

It was announced that the R&A are donating £7000 to the club in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.  This significant sum of money will be distributed by the club to local organisations which have been negatively impacted over the last few months in order to allow them to continue to support vulnerable people in the community.

Club members have filled 132 shoeboxes which will be sent to Romania and Ukraine.  These boxes are filled with everyday practical items which will be useful to less fortunate people in Eastern Europe.  Rotary International has delivered more than a million of these boxes over the last 25 years and they are greatly appreciated by the recipients.

The club welcomed Tom Griffin, President of Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland as our guest speaker this week.   Although Tom now resides in Suffolk he has strong connections with Scotland since he was born in Hamilton, spent some years in Dunfermline and studied law at Glasgow University.  Tom will be the last President of Rotary as the title will change next year to Chairman.

Tom gave an interesting and thought provoking talk about the future of Rotary membership and in particular the need to attract and retain younger people in the organisation.  Most of the 1.2 million members worldwide joined Rotary as a route to “give something back” to their community in the form of service, and also to widen their social fellowship circle.  In the modern world the traditional Rotary meetings with a meal and a guest speaker may be less attractive to the younger generation so clubs need to look at ways of altering the existing format to support new models of operating.  Tom also intimated that there may be an expectation to commit time and money which could discourage younger members from getting involved.  Rotary cannot expect the post Covid world to look the same so now is the time to look at what changes individual clubs need to make to reflect the lifestyle of the younger generation in their local communities.  Tom stated that there is a need communicate what Rotary does in order to attract members and this may involve more active participation in social media and online communication.  Tom summed up his talk by telling us that “the future of Rotary is is in the hands of the members”.