Some other ideas
Some other ideas
Are you stuck with no ideas for your club's speaker program?
Where do you start?
Here is one club's approach
The approach we have taken this year - so far with excellent results(!) - has been to avoid the "EEK!!! We've got all these empty weeks to fill!" approach.
Clubs might be assisted by a 'backfill' approach.
- Begin withall the necessary and traditional club activities (committee nights, debates, youth exchange talks, changeovers, The DG's Official Visit Christmas Party etc.)
- Rotary monthly designations are there for a purpose - to help us provide a balanced and comprehensive coverage of areas of Rotary focus. The sources of speakers to fill gaps more or less recommend themselves. We found that many organisations (State Library for literacy month, Vision Australia, Ronald Macdonald House, etc) have a bank of volunteers who are capable, entertaining and ready to do EXACTLY what we are looking for - entertaining after-dinner speaking.
- Local community organisations can help frame a local forum using local identities, representatives of youth groups, or retailers etc.)
- This year's Conference's House of Friendship and the Expo held in association with PETS gave a lot of ideas from other Rotary clubs' projects - Turramurra are ready, willing and able to talk very interestingly about Graffiti Removal. Teachers for Timor was also well handled and interesting given the increasing District focus on that area. Theo Glockemann is always ready to talk about Youth Insearch or Operation Hope. Miriam Jacka could probably be persuaded to talk about Ronald McDonald House or Donations in Kind.
- Interesting career talks (vocational) from some Rotarians are also stimulating - they often come from your own club but can be Rotarians from neighbouring clubs.
- Factory visits are also useful - the TAFE restaurant at Ryde provides and excellent vocational/youth/educational excuse for a wonderful social night..
- Any of the Youth Exchange team will recommend to you the shining stars from this year's youth exchange cohort. Past National Youth Science Forum candidates are also keen to share their experience. Youth Exchange students are here as young ambassadors and are a vastly underused resource.
- Returning GSE teams or reps. are a good source of speaker.
- A couple of Scatter Nights a year with members reporting back on what they found at the other clubs visited is highly recommended so that ideas can be shared
- Involving partners in the organisation of an evening of particular interest to the club, or co-organising a meeting with Inner Wheel/Lions/Rotaract or another club is also a refreshing source of stimulation.
[edited]