Greetings, Red Oak Rotarians!

 

At this month's board meeting, we spent several hours discussing the future of our club and ways to continue building on the foundation. We looked at the results from the visioning activity the club completed in October. We brainstormed goals to reach and steps to reach those goals. Please take a moment to thank our board members for all the time and energy they have put into developing our club's strategic plan. 

 

It's easy when you sit down with a group of Rotarians to start talking about what the club needs. We need more members. We need more engaged members. We need to do more service projects. We need to be more social. We need and we need and we need. And we need it all RIGHT NOW! There's this sense of doomsday urgency that creates a feeling of overwhelming pessimism. Do we really need all those things? Maybe. Probably. Do we need it immediately? Maybe. Maybe not. 

 

You could talk to ten Rotarians and get ten different answers about what our club needs. Everyone tends to look at Rotary through their own lens and what they wish it was for them. Rightfully so. Rotary can and should be many different things to different people. The trick is to make joining the club and staying active in the club valuable for all types of people. Are we a service club? Yes. Are we social? Yes. Do we develop leaders? Yes. We are all of these things and more. How we grow from here will take consistency, devotion, and intentionality. And it will take time.

 

I read this great quote: "You need to go into the 2% rule with the understanding that you are not going to change things overnight. Choose one activity at a time and attempt to improve it by 2%. Seismic changes are tough to come by, but incremental improvements are the key, and they add up over time. You want collective wins, not a grand slam. If you stick with the idea that this is a marathon, not a sprint, you will keep yourself sane." from Struggle to Strength by Harry Psaros

 

We are in a marathon. Our club has been around for 105 years. We've been through ups and downs before. We have a 100% survival rate of those down times, so I have every confidence that we will continue growing and serving our community. 

 

Don't forget - our Rotary Poker game started last Tuesday. It's till anyone's game. Attend a meeting to be dealt a card. Bring a guest to be dealt an additional card. The Rotarian with the best poker hand of cards on Dec. 17 will receive a $50 gift card.

 

Respectfully,