The meeting last week took the form of a club assembly to discuss the consolidation of the club constitution and by-laws with special emphasis on the possible categories of Rotary membership and ways in which this can be used to involve as many people in the community and as many interests of theirs as possible.
This can be achieved by having different categories of membership.
First there was the draw for the Power of Pennies at a social function last Friday evening at the Ferndale Bowls Club, which turned out to be a fun evening with two very special guests.
Francoise de Jongh-Nauchant is already a familiar face at New Dawn. She's a friend of Helene Bramwell and has Zoomed in a number of times from Luxembourg, where she lives.
Francoise is relocating to Johannesburg to be closer to her son, Pierre and grandchildren and expressed an interest in joining New Dawn and Rotary.
She did the honours for the draw for the R5000 prize money for the Power of Pennies and after drawing a toy snake from the calabash, proceeded to draw the name of Hannes Dressler as the prize winner.
Hannes, as we know, has relocated to the Middle East with his family and will be leaving New Dawn at the end of the current Rotary financial year in June. Attempts to reach him by email have not been fruitful, so if you're reading this Hannes, drop me a line.
The Power of Pennies is an attempt to create a steady stream of income for the club where participants (not necessarily only members) each pay R100 a month for four months and are then in line to win a cash prize equalling half of the fresh income for the four-month period, which has worked out to R5000 for the last few draws. The rest of the money stays in the kitty for club projects and business.
At the club assembly President Julian Nagy thanked Carol Stier for the mountain of work she did in tidying up the two most important club documents: the constitution and bylaws.
The member categories discussed were firstly the two categories recognised by Rotary International, being fully paid up Active members and non-contributing Honorary members.
A new category is Corporate membership where the club persuades a company to make an annual contribution in exchange for membership for some of their staff as part of their social investment programme.
Although the business pays the dues for those members, it would always be the aim to have the company contribute a larger amount than than just the dues to enable the club to tackle more projects. To achieve this would obviously require a concerted drive to recruit companies.
Associate membership would act as a sort of stepping stone to full membership. Associate members don't pay the full dues and are not Rotarians in the eyes of Rotary International, but use a probation time to see whether they think they fit into the club and vice versa.
This category of membership would preferably be for a fixed period, but could also be used to accommodate people who can't pay the full fees. Associate membership doesn't carry any voting or formal decision making rights, though.
The last category discussed is Affiliate membership, also known as Friends of Rotary for people who don't want to join as full members, for whatever reason. These are people who enjoy the club and its activities from time to time but can't be there permanently.
A club the size of New Dawn raises challenges in terms of administration and planning (we're all volunteers, after all) and the discussion focused a lot on how to get more people involved in more different ways, something New Dawn has always wanted.
This week: Loné Lourens, marketing and fundraising manager at Woodside Sanctuary, is the speaker. Woodside, a full-time residential care facility for children and adults with profound intellectual and physical disabilities, and New Dawn have had a long association.
There will also be a surprise visit from Tim Bashall of The Link.
The speaker the following week (24 May) is Ursula Botha, a speaking and confidence coach.
Diary: Don't forget to diarise the next Golf Day on Friday, 25 August at Parkview and World Cleanup Day on Saturday, 16 September.
A Thought for the Week: Always do what you are afraid to do. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
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