Hello Members and Friends,
For those members who were able to join us online at this week’s meeting, we had a very interesting speaker in Lili Teichman.
Lili was instrumental in establishing and is the current Vice President of Rotary Activate Victoria Club in District 9800, a small club of 18 members taking an innovative approach to attracting support from non-Rotarian volunteers of all ages to participate in community needs-based projects.
Lili, spoke of a conversation with her teenage son about the generalisation that young people are not interested in volunteering, to which his response was: How do you know we are not interested?
Activate’s approach has been to find out what their local community needs / gaps are, find out who is active in addressing that need and partnering with other organisations to deliver.
The club aims to make their projects as accessible as possible to attract support by:
- Being prepared to be flexible and change the project delivery around as needed.
- Do things at times suitable to members and volunteers.
- Promoting projects on the “Way Volunteer” website and social media
- Being visible in their community and their service delvery
The Activate Club is an online club which meets fortnightly to discuss and report on current and future opportunities. They meet face to face during project work with community volunteers doing mainly hands on activities. They also meet socially three or four times a year.
By giving volunteers, the opportunity to participate in impactful yet accessible community projects, while developing their leadership and vocational skills and meeting lifelong friends who share their values, the club provides a pathway to them potentially becoming Rotarians.
Activate’s President, Incoming Secretary and Treasurer for the next Rotary year all started as community volunteers on club project work.
One of the club’s current weekly activities is to prepare and deliver 70 plus meals to their local Glen Eira community in Melbourne. The project is called “Nourish”. You can find out more about the project via this link:
Please take the time to check out the Way Volunteer website for other projects via this link:
And to find out more about Rotary Activate, please check out this link:
Enjoy the King’s Birthday Long Weekend break!
Keep an eye out for the registrations email for or joint meeting with RC Grovedale Waurn Ponds to hear from our two RYLA participants on Monday 17th June @Kithbrooke
