Innovation and Change

            Rotary Group in Bishop Cleeve

THE STORY OF STARTING A ROTARY GROUP IN 2021

A Community Development Plan

I started putting a picture together of organisations and institutions in Bishops Cleeve or represented there, such as the Parish Council, in the middle of June 2021. This involved desk research and trawling contacts in Cheltenham and the surrounding areas. Conversations resulted in a considerable amount of information being collected including a number of named individuals who were influencers and viewed as potential members.

During June 21 I emailed and then arranged to contact Richard Stanley (RS), aged 39, both a Parish Councillor and a Tewkesbury Borough Councillor.  He had organized a Volunteering Group of 80 during the COVID lock down and was open to the Rotary story and the opportunity of doing something completely new in Bishops Cleeve. He immediately agreed to become a member of Rotary.

Selecting a Club to Sponsor the new Group

In parallel I had conversations with one of Cheltenham’s traditional Clubs, Cheltenham Cleeve Vale (CCVR), who were down to 8 members with an average age moving towards 80. Their President, Michael Ratcliffe, had given the Club only a year or two to survive, however there was a strong desire to create a legacy in BC if possible. This Club had traditionally taken initiatives in Cleeve and had built a close co-operation with Cleeve School. It was obvious that they should be the Club to work with. The strategy was to develop a new Rotary Group as a community based group and not use traditional Rotary labels, such as Satellite Club, with associated rules and restrictions on numbers.

 Michael Ratcliffe and I immediately forged a strong alliance both understanding the dynamics of change and of energizing teams to tackle it. So the plan was that CCVR would ‘sponsor’ the new group which would determine its own destiny. In effect all members of the new group would be Club members of the CCVR.

My efforts were to focus on a strategy to develop the group and gain members and Michael to closely communicate with and secure the support of his existing members. Together the combination could be successful – but without that ‘partnership’ or something like it nothing would have happened!

RS was introduced to the Club at a social meeting in my garden over a glass of wine, and his membership application processed thereafter. He, meanwhile, had recruited in turn another Parish Councilor who had a record of community involvement.

How to organize the process of development

To formalize the actual formation of the new Group a Steering Group was set up which involved CCVR Members, the two new Group members, myself as District Membership Lead, one of my team, recruited to assist with membership development in the Area, the PI District Lead, the Area Governor and the President of neighbouring Winchcombe Club who is a Cleeve resident and offered to assist. The first meeting took place on the 7^th July. Those meetings continued on a fortnightly basis through to a first event on the 31^st August.

The strategy from the start was to call an Open Meeting of all interested Residents when fortuitously a Bishops Cleeve Fun Day was announced organized by the Parish Council. This was seen as an opportunity to publicly announce the formation of a new group to be launched at an Open Community meeting on the 22 September. In the four weeks of August we were able to put together a stand for the Fun Day with support from our team at District and from neighboring Clubs. Significantly, practically all existing CCVR members offered assistance, some on the day and others delivering 2,500 leaflets to houses in the village.

How to communicate with the Residents

Back in July at the beginning RS our first new member had set up two face book pages, one for members and one for the public. The Village Notice Board (another Facebook page with approaching 10,000 users) was also used to advertise our presence at the Fun Day and the Open Meeting on the 22 September.

We used Area Clubs/District contacts at Radio stations, local knowledge of poster locations and with the PI Lead’s help designed a leaflet which was titled “Launching a new community initiative in Bishops Cleeve”.

Even before the Fun Day, with RS having set up one of the Fun Day games on Facebook namely “Guess the name of the Teddy Bear!” displaying a picture of the life sized bear which had been donated, we had secured a following. In addition, some 90 residents who visited our stall, gave us contact details on the Fun day as they had participated in games offering prizes such as the Teddy Bear and “Guess the number of sweets in the Jar” and “Splat the Rat”.

The Launch Meeting, and Follow up Meetings

17 local residents attended the Open evening and were told a little about the Rotary movement, the history of the CCVR and importantly to understand that this new initiative belonged to them. The meeting was carefully scripted and the first two new members initiated RS and Murray Stewart, a Parish Councillor.

At the end of the evening 9 persons confirmed their intention to become members and 7 application forms were collected. A follow up meeting was confirmed some three weeks later and subsequently in what Michael deemed to be an “induction period” a further three meetings three weeks apart through to Christmas were arranged.

On the first follow up meeting in October there were 14 people present including 7 who had not attended the previous Open evening. On the third meeting in early November 4 further new members were inducted. SO NOW 6. There are a further 5 applications in the pipeline which we hope to process with inductions before Christmas.

Potential members are therefore present when new members are presented with their Certificates and pins. This seems to be a successful way of involving all in positive and meaningful actions.

The desire to move to action – what to do in the community

From the very first Open meeting and subsequent meetings the importance of getting things done to improve cohesion in the community and help others was apparent and impressive. Having now embarked upon two events in two locations in the Village setting up a Christmas Grotto with a Santa (in co-operation with the Chamber of Commerce, a Housing Association, local businesses and the Parish Council), and a Sleigh (courtesy of the Winchcombe Rotary Club) including mince pies and mulled wine (as featured by Chipping Campden Rotary Club) project meetings have now been added to the regular 3 weekly meetings.

The two Xmas events will take place on the 20^th November and the 11^th December, in the centre of Bishops Cleeve.

The objectives being to support the disadvantaged in one area and to work with the elderly in the other. Undoubtedly broadcasting our existence and hopefully leading to further membership inquiries.

It is intended to achieve a surplus for the Charity account which is ring-fenced for local causes. 

A Blue print for the organization of the New Group

The new group will financially work within the remit of the existing CCVR Treasurer.

It has been agreed that the first two new members RS and MS will act as Joint Chairs.  A Secretary, a Project Manager, a Procurement Officer, with two people covering Governance and Risk Assessments have been appointed. Two further appointments as leads on Volunteering and Media/Communication will also be created. I will act as Adviser to the Joint Chairs and the Group and de facto will oversee membership matters.

Documents have been drawn up as guidelines to the way the new group operate and work together. A questionnaire has been compiled for all members to provide their views on how their group will function as they go forward in 2022.

Looking ahead it is the will of the members of the CCVRC that their roles are taken over by new members during the next year (if possible) and that the name will be changed to the Bishops Cleeve Rotary Club or something similar depending on the member’s decision.

Drewe Lacey
(District 1100 Membership Lead)
8^th November 2021

            Bishop Cleeve Leaflet

            Rotary Club of Evesham

MEMBERSHIP STRATEGY 2021-22

There was a great deal of consensus expressed in the consultation exercise that there is a need to focus on building the Club’s membership over the coming period. We have not been particularly active on this front in the recent past for obvious reasons but the ‘Continuity Group’ (Pamela, Sue, Hein and Trevor) feels that for a number of reasons the 2021-2022 Rotary year offers a number of opportunities, but that a plan needs to be built to take advantage of these opportunities. We propose that the Club takes a pro-active stance by creating a small Project Group who will be tasked with developing a plan to create a wider profile for RCoE and to spread the message about the advantages of joining Rotary and of volunteering in general.

The Membership Group could have the following objectives;

• To develop a clear statement about what are the advantages of becoming a Rotarian over other forms of Volunteering
• To produce an introductory ‘leaflet’ introducing RCoE and RitV
• To construct a campaign using social media to reach out to different sectors of the community
• To ensure that RCoE activities receive publicity at least once a month in the ‘traditional’ media
• To produce a plan to increase the membership of the Rotary Club of Evesham by at least 5 members by June 2022.

Opportunities that we consider might be worth exploring in order to fulfil these objectives include;

• Contacting Clubs in D1100 to learn from the experience of others
• Developing, when appropriate, a co-operative approach to recruiting new members with Rotary in the Vale, such that any prospective new member can select the most convenient method of becoming involved in Rotary and are aware of the presence of two different but complementary Rotary ‘platforms’ in Evesham
• Building on the excellent work done on the Club’s behalf by Patrick Staines over the past few years in making contact with local businesses
• To specify a raft of opportunities for businesses and their employees to become involved in the local community and charities where we can act as ‘facilitator’
• To examine ways of leveraging our contacts in the Interact Clubs to see whether we can expand interest to include parents in some way
• Given the forthcoming expansion in new housing in and around Evesham, to explore ways of making contact with people new to the area who might be looking for ways to integrate in the Community and contribute
• To explore whether we can ‘spread our net’ to a greater extent in surrounding villages
• To maintain the previous approach of personal contacts being invited to consider becoming members

The list of opportunities is clearly not exhaustive but we believe that if a few people with interest and commitment in developing such initiatives focus on this throughout the year we stand a much better chance of identifying people.

Discussions with representatives of other Clubs and District 1100 show that many share the view that, unless Clubs move forward with a more flexible and outward looking approach, then the strong likelihood is that many will fade away and die in the medium term, to the detriment of the local communities they serve.

We do not believe that any of us wants the Rotary Club of Evesham to be put in that position, but that to avoid it we need to reinvigorate our approach.

^{Trevor, Pamela, Sue, Hein}