As club, division and district leaders of the Great New York District for 2009-10, I want to encourage you to take your role as a leader to seize the opportunity to lead our NY District to a significant membership increase that we have not enjoyed for a number of years. In 1989, I was the NYD Chair for Membership under PDG Tom McIntyre and we finished the year with 20 new clubs and more than 14,000 members. As of 09/30/09, our membership has dropped to just under 8,000 members.
We have had only five membership increases in 20 years and the first one took place 11 years ago when I was Governor in 1999-2000. I had multiple programs on all types of membership programs, build 11 clubs, 400+ members under the age of 40 when we re-started Project 39, and still only had a net gain of +190. Gov. Pat Cooney had 15 clubs built in 2001-02, and only had a gain of +85, Gov. Peter Mancuso built 11 new clubs and added 168 members, and Gov. David Rothman in 2005-06 had a gain of 120+ as a result of an administrative year-end closing with no adjustments and the late Gov. Don Herring, who pulled out all the stops on Membership Growth in 2007-08, had a gain of +6. New Club Building, Revitalization and Membership Growth is HARD work. IT CAN NOT BE DONE WITH A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE!
Membership is a CONTINUAL process, not just a periodic "we need to get more members" episode when our clubs are in trouble. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the mode of operation. I ask you: "who would want to join a dying club that is on a respirator vs. a viable, active club that CONTINUALLY recruits new members as part of their on going process?" Probably not many! In fact, 35 percent of our clubs have fewer than 25 members.
New Club Building and Revitalization of small clubs is THE key to success for the New York District now and for the future. If we believe that Kiwanis is the BEST service organization in the world, then EVERY community DESERVES a Kiwanis club! We must continually be looking for sites to build new clubs in ALL divisions. At the same time, we must make every attempt to REVITALIZE existing clubs and put a system in place that club leadership maintains/enhances membership for the future so that revitalization does NOT have to occur again with that club; ie; surgery was successful the FIRST time!
Gov. Dave Booker and his Lt. Governors, Bookers Builders, have cited 20 locations to build new clubs, additional sites for satellite clubs and a number of small clubs that need to be revitalized. IT IS TIME TO DO THE WORK! More members = more service to our communities. Contact your lieutenant governor and let's get under construction and build NOW! Build, revitalize or disappear ... which one will it be? I can be reached at 315-449-3000 x358 or pepster@aol.com. I will be rolling-out the names of our Regional New Club Building/Revitalization team later this month who will be available to assist divisions on New Club Building and Revitalization. Note: a new club building kit can not be ordered unless a Site Survey has been completed and sent to me for review.
Column Posted on Web Site December 28, 2009
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