November 07, 2012

Secretary’s Corner_11072012

Our meeting last Oct. 25 was an ‘evening meeting’ and Dr. Al Lopez was our speaker. He spoke on the subject, Stem Cell Therapy. He brought with him his colleague, Dr. Maria Antonio Cudal, a Geriatrics and Pathology specialist, not because there are several members who would qualify under his Geriatric care but rather his specialization in the field of Pathology made him qualified to answer questions about Stem Cell Therapy that has become a controversial subject in today’s news. As always, more time was devoted to the ‘open forum’ than the actual speech.

Attendance was still low in spite of this being an ‘evening meeting.’ Those present were the usual members who diligently attend our weekly meetings regardless if it’s a noon time or evening meeting. Doubts surfaced if moving our meetings to Wednesday Evening will improve our club’s attendance performance. At any rate, after one month we will evaluate and adapt measures towards getting more members to attend our weekly meetings.

Relative to the subject on ‘attendance,’ it became evident that recruitment of new members should be stepped-up. This year, and the immediate past Rotary Year has seen us inducting new members, but these new members have been remiss in attending our weekly meetings. Last Rotary year, during the term of PP Nan Sallan, we held the last Thursday of the month as an evening meeting to allow members who found it difficult to attend our noon time meetings to catch-up. This practice continued to this RY under Pres Jojo Bacarro. But even our so called ‘Rotarians of the night’ seldom show up for our evening meetings even for only once a month.

We’ve tried inviting interesting speakers, two senators even – from each side of the political arena, and yet we were not able to achieve 100% attendance. I still remember stories way back in the 70’s when the club achieved 100% club attendance for the whole Rotary Year! Once, a member was confined in the hospital, the club decided to hold the meeting inside the hospital room where the member was confined in, thus the club still hit the coveted 100% attendance for that week. These days, we are far from that attendance plateau. Sadly, some of our current members are too distant from the level of commitment we had way back in the 70’s.

Could implementing the ‘buddy system’ help in getting our attendance ratings up? Members who frequently attend meetings [“AP” for always present] will be assigned members who seldom attend [“FA” for frequently absent] as their ‘buddy.’  The AP Member will ascertain that the FA Member assigned to him will attend our weekly meetings. Do you think this will work?

Cheers and enjoy RotaryJ

Sec/PP Jovie