President Rena opened the meeting at 12:29pm (a minute early to keep us on our toes). Pam recited the 4-Way Test and Steve recited an invocation. SAA Jim J let us know that we had 17 Rotarians in attendance plus 2 attending via Zoom. Guest were Todd's Fashion Consultant (and daughter), Abigail, as well as our speaker and fellow Rotarian, Scott Hebert.

Our Johnny Smooth continues to upsell tickets. We must be hitting the $900 mark. Wayne and Brian were this week's losers. They managed to cull the deck to just 10 cards. Rumour has it that next week Johnny will be adding the Ace of Spades to the deck.

 

 

Happy Birthday to Katie's husband, Shane! (Aug 10th)

 

Club Summer Social Gathering (Aug 24) - This year's Summer Bash is being held at the home of Keith and Sherri Peers, 210 Morningside Drive, Cambridge, from 5pm to 9pm. Paul Cody has organized to have the Fo' Cheezy Food Truck on site. Our District Governor, Brenda Halloran, and members from other Cambridge clubs will be invited to attend. Free to members and spouses. Guests are to pay $25 on the day.

 

Member Engagement - President Rena did a call out of our Club Committees and encouraged members to get involved in at least one committee this year. 

 

 

We are currently looking for another bulletin editor and welcome aspiring writers looking to do light-hearted character assassinations (optional, but encouraged). Contact President Rena if you want to join the Bulletin Fold.

 

Todd noted that his daughter, Abigail was just a young babe when he first joined our club. Twenty years later, she's still here attending meetings with our fold.

 

Bruce Flowers and his wife recently celebrated 62 years of marriage and will be becoming Great Grandparents on December 21st. Does this mean they've only been good grandparents up until now? Mega congrats to the Flowers on both counts!

 

Paul McM and wife, Suzanne, will be leaving for Scotland to attend another funeral of a friend (2nd one in 6 months) and will be spending some holiday time in Edinburgh.

 

Paul C's daughter and family are visiting from Chicago this weekend which will bring all of his 7 grandchildren together (ages ranging from 2yrs to 20+yrs). Sounds like fun will be had with the Codys fam-damily!

Heidi introduced today's speaker and fellow Rotarian, Scott Hebert.

 

Scott began his health administration career at London Health Sciences Centre and has, over the years, worked in acute, long-term, home and community care.

 

Fun fact: Scott's grandfather was president of our club many years ago (before Scott was born). His father, uncle and great uncles were also Rotarians in London, Cambridge and Australia. 

 

Scott is a very dedicated and busy Rotarian. In fact, his Rotary time and  experience has gone from sunrise to sunset. Really. Scott joined Cambridge Sunrise in 2001 and recently joined the newly chartered Sunset club (badda boom badda bing for this Bulletin Editor!).

 

Scottt is currently serving as District 7080's Membership Chair. Today, Scott spoke to us about membership within our District.

 

There are currently 51 clubs in our District and an interest has been expressed to create a Passport (virtual) club. Membership leads emailed to Rotary International (RI) haven't had the greatest connection rate. Last year, of the 75 leads received from RI, only 8 resulted in membership. The desired closing rate is 30% or more. Assessing membership satisfaction/experience can be done in two ways. The first is to do a Health Check Survey (you might remember this being sent to you in the past few years). The second is the newly created New Member Checklist. A suggestion has been made to include a new aspect to our 4 Way Test (making it the 5 Way Test) which is: "Will it be FUN?" The average attrition rate in our District is 15%. While membership retention is important, the key in growing our membership is to recruit new members and invite past members to rejoin. Scott referred to the latter as the 'secret sauce' to increase membership as past members often rejoin when they are approached. He also mentioned that new members often say they joined Rotary because they were invited to do so and that they felt very welcomed by the club members,which emphasizes the importance of inviting a friend or acquaintance to one of our meetings or social events. While our club is strong and vibrant with approximately 40 members, many clubs are struggling. The District makes effort to support clubs with less than 20 members.

 

Paul McM thanked Scott for speaking to our club and then told a joke that some guys had a hard time understanding (you had to be there).