Rotary Staff Give Back to Evanston

(From left) Melanie Davis, Stephanie Norton, Michelle Gasparian, Renee O’Keefe (front), Maura Rogan (back), Nora Beamish-Lannon, John Wahlund

More than 100 Rotary employees volunteered 316 hours of service during the first Rotary Week of Caring on 14-18 September. Regional Grants Officer Rebeca Mendoza, along with a team of Rotary staff and executive management, organized events with 10 local charities and organizations doing great things here in Evanston. Activities included teaching local youth about the importance of hand washing, maintenance of community gardens, packing food at a food depository, sorting medical supplies, and cleaning a community resource center.

Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinator Specialist Melanie Davis discusses germs and contact with students.

Members of the Regional Leader Support team spent a few hours at Family Focus teaching third, fourth and fifth graders hand washing skills through fun learning activities and a demonstration of how germs are spread.  John Wahlund, the Area of Focus Manager for Disease Prevention and Treatment, joined Regional Leader Support to teach the students.

The Week of Caring activities helped staff boost visibility and influence of Rotary here in Evanston. “We feel fortunate to work for an organization with so many civic and humanitarian-minded colleagues who are eager to give back,” said Rebeca Mendoza.

If you want to give back through a water and sanitation project, join Rotary and the Water & Sanitation Rotarian Action Group for a three part webinar series to assist Rotarians with WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) in Schools projects beginning 15 October. You’ll join sector experts and hear about the importance of program efforts, behavior change through hygiene education, and how to engage your community.

What service projects are underway in your region that increase Rotary’s visibility?  Share your stories in the comments below!

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Making the Most of Membership Month

August is Membership and New Club Development Month. We are celebrating strong membership growth of nearly 25,000 members over the 2014-15 year. The hard work and support of our members has produced incredible results over the past year, most significantly with the recent polio eradication milestone on the African continent, which marked one year without a case of polio caused by the wild poliovirus. With your important efforts as Regional Leaders, we can continue attracting new members, engaging current members, and changing the world. Here are a few ways you can help:

• Rotary’s social media channels, The Rotarian magazine, and Rotary.org are showcasing Membership Month promotions and activities all month long. We encourage you to share these features with your club and district leaders.
• Remember to visit My Rotary or the Rotary Shop to find publications and resources to help you attract new members and engage your current members. Copies of many of these publications are also available through your Rotary workgroups.
• Tell our colleagues in Membership Development why you joined Rotary—and why you continue to stay involved—on Facebook or at membership.minute@rotary.org. Sharing the positive experiences you have had as a Rotarian is an effective way to interest a potential new member!
• Finally, take a moment to read a blog post by Zone 24 West E/MGA Chris Offer about why he stayed in Rotary.

What strategies for attraction and engagement are you using during Membership Month? Share them with us in the comments below!

Being your best presenter

By Mark Kreibel, 2015 Regional Leader’s Training Institute Facilitator

In March, RPIC Shirley Downie shared best practices for tailoring your responses to the audience’s tough questions. To be a good presenter, you also need to tailor your presentation to each audience to make sure it is effective and engaging.

Many readers may feel that presenting to a group is challenging and intimidating!  Here are a dozen tips to help you get rid of your stage fright and take your presentations to the next level:

1. Talk naturally to your audience. Even though you are speaking to a large group, make the audience feel you are having a conversation with each of them individually.  Avoid reading a script.
2. Try to stand, rather than sit. Move around the stage if possible and keep your movements natural, rather than forced.  In some instances, sitting can be used to create an intimate conversation atmosphere, a technique often used by Past RI President Bill Boyd; while standing behind a podium might add a level of formality to your presentation.
3. Vary the tone, pitch and volume of your voice. Use your voice to add emphasis and maintain the audience’s interest.  Try to speak loudly and clearly while facing your audience.  Avoid talking in a monotone voice or turning your back to the audience. Remember you are telling a story, not simply relating facts and figures.
4. Make eye contact with your audience.  Gain eye contact with as many individual members of the audience as possible.  If stage lighting prevents you from actually seeing the audience, vary where you look toward them and pretend you are making eye contact.
5. Use visual aids where appropriate.  Graphs and charts, diagrams, pictures, and video can enhance any presentation, but don’t overdo it.  Visual aids should help illustrate and strengthen your points, not simply repeat or be a distraction from your spoken message. If you use lists or text on your slides, don’t read them verbatim!  Or, even better, create an effective presentation without using PowerPoint. Your voice and your movements are your best visual aid.
6. Rehearse your presentation.  A good presenter makes their speech look spontaneous and natural, but this comes from sufficient rehearsal.  Make certain to time your rehearsals to stick to the allotted time, and allow for question and answer time when appropriate.
7. Prepare and structure your presentation carefully.  Introduce the subject – tell the audience what your talk is about.  Explain the points you wish to convey.  End with a summary of your points.
8. Stay focused throughout your presentation. Avoid irrelevant and unnecessary detail. Stay on topic and don’t go down any tangents that don’t directly relate to your topic. Focus your message through a relevant personal story or anecdote.
9. Avoid nervous gestures and speech. Putting your hands in your pockets, crossing your arms, jingling change, and overusing “filler words” (aahh, err, and uh) detract from your talk.  Appropriate hand gestures can add emphasis to your presentation. When you rehearse, practice moving with purpose, and not simply pacing.
10. Answer any questions as honestly and concisely as you can.  If you don’t know the answer, then say so and offer to provide further information at a later date. If appropriate, offer to follow up with the questioner one-on-one … and then fulfill that promise.
11. Challenge the audience with a “Call to Action.”  Finish your presentation by motivating your audience to take a specific action, such as implementing one best practice you talked about or sharing a particular statistic with their club.
12. Thank the audience for their time and attention.  This simple act shows the audience you appreciate their time and attention.

By thinking critically about your presentation, you can improve your skills and confidence. Reviewing and implementing these twelve tips will set you up for presentation success!

One other tip: Arrive early and get to know your space and your tools. Walk around the stage to become familiar with it. Test your microphone if you have one. Set up anything you think you might need during your presentation, such as notes or a bottle of water. Leave yourself time just before your presentation to prepare mentally, and not worry about minor details like these.

And remember: in almost every instance, the audience is on your side and wants you to succeed. If you are feeling nervous, think of them not as an audience, but as the silent members of your team!

How membership and The Rotary Foundation go together

By RRFC Wyn Spiller, Zone 25

Each August, we celebrate membership and reflect on keeping our clubs attractive, engaging and fun. But we should really be celebrating Rotary membership all year long. From providing extraordinary opportunities to make a difference in our local communities and around the world, to the remarkable friendships we form by working together, The Rotary Foundation is a special part of the promise of Rotary. Attractive, engaging, fun…absolutely!

During the last few years, we have been encouraged to share our Rotary stories.  Many times we share a special moment when our hearts were touched, maybe it was when an elderly woman received a wheelchair and was given the gift of mobility for the first time, or seeing clean water pour from a newly constructed well, or maybe it was while working at an orphanage, comforting a little child, and realizing that love is a universal language.

In these moments, we realize that what we get back from Rotary is so much more than we give. These special moments don’t just occur halfway around the world, they occur right here at home, too – and so very often they are connected to our Rotary Foundation.

The Rotary Foundation celebrates members, too – great examples are found in all the Foundation projects featured on Rotary Showcase and in the areas of focus videos.  Members bring more hands to more projects, more leadership to address complex and significant issues, and more ways to create a healthier, more prosperous and hopeful world, and one ultimately filled with peace.

Rotary is such a wonderful gift – let’s each share it with someone new! And then share with them our (and now their) remarkable Rotary Foundation. Our Rotary Foundation, powered by our dollars, our service and our commitment, is sharing the promise of Rotary throughout the world, touching the lives of so many—and one of those lives, of course, is our very own.  Share the magic, share the promise, share The Rotary Foundation!

Happy holidays!

Happy Holidays from the Regional Leader Support team!

This holiday season we are especially thankful for you, our dedicated regional leaders and assistant coordinators whose passion for Rotary and diligence in the field furthers our impact in communities worldwide.  Because of your efforts, we are better positioned to increase our membership, be recognized publicly for the work we do, and strengthen our Foundation.

Your Evanston support team is looking forward to spending time with family and friends during the holidays. Over the next few weeks, members of our team are travelling around the world and the country to visit family and relax. Please be patient with us as our response time may be delayed.

Based on your first quarter reports, we are amazed by the outstanding communication and outreach efforts in each of your regions. As a regional leader group, you gave approximately 1,200 presentations, an increase from last year of 17 percent, on topics including strategic planning, Rotary grants, Rotary’s endowment fund, End Polio Now, and Strengthening Rotary.  More than half of you used Facebook to connect with Rotarians in your regions.  Regional leaders continue to use webinars and/or videoconferences to reach over 2,500 Rotarians, a 40 percent increase from last year. Additionally, almost 40,000 Rotarians received updates and expert advice from your newsletters, an increase of 60 percent!

Thank you again for the work you do on behalf of the organization and Rotarians around the world.  You are all champions of Rotary.

Best wishes for the holiday season, and Happy New Year!