My dear fellow ROTIan,

I thank you for the trust you placed in electing me as your ROTI Chair for 2007 – 2009. We have an experienced Board of Directors that is willing to bring their experience and expertise to ROTI. They are your board, and I am your Chair, let us all work together for our fellowship, the Rotarians on the Internet.

The following are several points for your consideration:

• Updating our By-Laws Steve Sokol has a committee working on this and we will see the results of that work soon.
• Keeping our membership lists current. This has created difficulties for several folks working behind the scene.
• Explain membership policies. Simply receiving emails on any of the Yahoo group lists does not make one a member of ROTI.
• Increase readership of our Breadbasket. This should be the ROTI showcase. What can be done to make more of the members aware of it?

I am not a numbers man and not impressed by how many members we report to RI. I do care about making our fellowship viable and of service to those that are members. Just as a good Rotary club depends on fellowship and interesting meetings, we need to develop ways to make it worthwhile to both become and remain a ROTIan. If we do that, our membership will grow.

Problems that I see we face are:

• Difficulty in handling diverse cultures. This is strength for the breadth it brings, but a problem in communicating with people from many countries. Some of this can be done by frequently informing members of the need for netiquette in handling ideas of conflicts of religion, politics, or other sensitive subjects.
• The repetition of material that we must consistently face. As members of ROTI for a long-time, you know how topics seem to cycle to the point of lack of interest on the part of many. Yet, to the new member, they are of importance.
• Representation from many sectors. You now have a Board of Directors from ten countries with over 100 years of experience in ROTI. They also have the depth of cultural backgrounds that provide our organization with understanding of the differences we encounter.
• Find a way to have newer members participate. I understand that many prefer to lurk, but that defeats the idea of fellowship. A member of a Rotary club that comes to meetings, but never is active in projects, district events, or an active participant at their club meetings may benefit from the meeting, but does not share fellowship with the club. It takes a few extra moments and strokes on the keyboard, but they will soon realize the warmth that fellowship with ROTIans may bring.
• I would like to survey the membership to see who has 'special' knowledge of Rotary subjects that could regularly bring up information that would be of benefit. Join me in thinking out loud; the subject of Grants, Speakers, Recruiting, GSE, Rotary Scholars, Fund raising projects, Officer training, Bulletins, and TRF, are but a few. I'm sure that one or two 'serious' topics a week might generate threads to placate those individuals that might feel "ROTI is nice, but there are too many inside jokes, stories, or personal exchanges.

ROTI is now officially 10 years old; what can we do for our next decade? Our computers and ISPs are faster, we have Skype, and can more easily store audio and photo files, blogs and mp3 files are possible.

OK, the floor is open for suggestions.

Ron

Ron Nethercutt, PP, MPHF, TRF Alumnus
RC Clark Centennial D3790 Philippines
Consultant, Angeles University
www.jazzprof.com

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