SHOW VIDEO OF LIGHT UP ROTARY

INTRO SLIDE

District Governor Ken, Past District Governors, DGN Jane, DGND Stephen,

Assistant Governors and Fellow Rotarians,

2 LIGHT UP ROTARY

President Elect Gary Huang has fired us up to “Light Up Rotary” in this coming

Rotary year.

As I said to the Presidents Elect at Multi District PETS, for me, this is a very

exciting and challenging theme because it works on so many levels - for

individuals, groups, communities and indeed the planet.

I think “it works” because the idea of “lighting up” is such an engaging and

archetypal human theme - we’ve all been talking and thinking about “lighting

up” ever since our ancestors looked at the sun or discovered fire.

The Literature, of all cultures in all ages has continually made reference this

concept - President Elect Gary referred to Confucius, around 450 BC,

challenging us to start lighting up candles in the darkness, and 2500 years later,

in 1980, James Reyne made reference to the boys “lighting up” in the

Australian Crawl song - although I do believe they had different things on their

minds!

Anyway, the idea of lighting up and related symbols of fire, the sun, stars,

lanterns, light bulbs, spot lights, candles and bombs has been linked with such

ideas as motivation, inspiration, human passion, providing warmth, discovering

new ideas, showing the way, putting things on display, getting rid of darkness

and even putting a bomb under things that are stuck or in the way, and all of

those could have some reference to Rotary clubs at some time or other.

3. - MOTIVATION

However, today, as we gather together to explore ways we can be more

effective as Rotarians in our Rotary district, I wanted to focus on just one of

those ideas - the idea of motivating ourselves or igniting our passion as

Rotarians

To Light up Rotary is to motivate Rotary - particularly to ignite or re-kindle

passion in Rotarians, which will, when a critical mass is reached, re-ignite or

motivate Rotary Clubs and a motivated Rotary club will light up or make a

difference in their communities. So how do we rekindle and maintain our level

of motivation or passion as Rotarians? How do we light up Rotary?

4. - MICHAEL APTER

There have been many researchers look into the topic of human motivation,

but one of the most respected is Dr. Michael Apter who is mainly responsible

for developing the “Reversal” theory of motivation in the 1970’s. I want to

share a very quick overview of the theory to set a context, although it’s not

necessary to fully understand this at this stage. If you want to know more

about reversal theory, simply put those words into Google and there are some

excellent tutorials and videos available. This theory suggests that humans

experience different states of motivation in four domains or categories of life,

and in each of these four categories, at any particular moment, we feel drawn

to one of two human needs. The theory gets its title from the suggestion that

when we get bored, or frustrated with one need, we start desiring the

opposite need – our direction of motivation reverses. Here are Apter’s four

domains and the pair of needs in each:

5. FOUR DOMAINS

1. In the “Means-ends” domain, we either feel a need for achievement and to

get serious about future goals, or feel a need for fun and want to be playful

2. In the “Rules” domain, we either feel a need to “fit in” and feel part of the

group and follow the rules, so we feel motivated to conform, or we feel a

need for freedom and we feel like challenging the rules or changing the way

we do things and innovating.

3. In the “Transactions” domain, we either feel a need for mastery or to get

things right and act competitively, or we feel a need for care and compassion

and act affectionately.

4. In the “Relationships” domain, we either feel a need for personal wholeness

and feel self-oriented, or we feel a need for altruism and feel other-people

oriented.

According to Apter, we are feeling motivated towards one extreme in each of

these domains at every moment throughout the day. We are probably only

conscious of our needs in one or maybe two domains at a time, but they are all

at work to some extent.

Now I reckon this stuff has lots of implications for Rotary Clubs and we can

make use of this theory to keep ourselves motivated, to keep our clubs

motivated and enable us all to light up Rotary in the coming year.

The first general implication is that it’s good for us to realize that as individuals,

our periodical bouts of frustration and boredom are absolutely human and

natural - but, instead of blaming Rotary, or opting out as some do, we can start

looking for ways to meet our opposite need or move into the opposite state.

e.g. if we tire of seriously going after our goals, it’s time we had some fun.

The second general implication is that clubs shouldn’t over react when

members lose interest and want a break - we need to give them that space,

but make sure we have those eight states on offer as part of our total club

package, so members can get involved in a different way.

So let’s briefly look at those eight areas and some of the things we can do to

light up or motivate ourselves, our clubs, and Rotary in general.

6 - GOALS

In the means-ends category, our clubs need to have some serious, clear goals

in all of the areas in which they plan to achieve. Those goals need to be

developed and owned by the members, and ideally, the goals need to be on

display at every meeting, on the web site, in facebook, in the newsletter so

members can periodically remind themselves of where the club is heading. It

would be good if one member could remind the club of the progress the club is

making in each of their achievement areas, and every year, it’s good practice

for the club to set aside a time to review their goals and tweak them, and

maybe every few years, set a new set of goals. The club visioning program is a

great way of doing all of this, and we have a number of people in our district

who could assist. This process will meet the needs of those members who are

in the state seriously achieving and will help to boost the motivation of all

members in the club.

7 - FUN

So that’s one end of the means-end domain - the other end is fun. Our club

experience needs to have lots of fun, and fun of all types. Some clubs think

they’re having fun by having a joke on the newsletter or a joke in the meeting.

That’s fine, but how about periodical meetings set aside for fun events - either

visits to places or in house events. It’s important that a team of people develop

these fun events, too, because different members will have different tastes in

fun. Some like it bawdy, some like it active, some passive, some like music,

some like to dance, some like games, some like dressing up, some like chatting

around a bar, some like it structured, some don’t. Have a variety, so everyone

has some enjoyment some of the time. Ask your members individually to say

what constitutes a fun event for them. Review the fun events you have and

find out things that work well and have more of them. A fun meeting is a

motivational meeting and in its own way, a way of furthering the work of, and

lighting up Rotary.

8 - TEAM BUILDING

If we consider the Rules domain, it would follow that we need times where our

clubs do things together as a team, and times where we participate together in

ceremonies and rituals. Developing a team identity can be highly motivating

and all of us who have even been in a team will know that great feeling you

have the first time you parade together in your team uniform. Some of our

clubs are doing a great job at this like the Alfredton club which has used it’s

purple colours as a way of building identity. I reckon it would great for all our

clubs to own a couple of colours, or develop a mascot or a symbol for their

club and parade it at District Conference, District assembly, in their local

community - anywhere to build a motivating sense of being a team. It would

be good for clubs to think about what is special and unique about their

particular club and use that as a subtitle to their name, put it on social media.

Our club president talks about our “Signature activity” for this year. I can

imagine, “Newtown Rotary - Youth exchange central! - Let’s light up Rotary

with our sense of pride in our team.

9 - RITUALS

The other way of building a sense of belonging is to participate in rituals

together. For some people in Rotary, rituals are old school, but human beings

love rituals and we often glow when we are part of them. They can be highly

motivating. The trouble is, they need to be continually updated so they remain

fresh, relevant and vital. Too often we say that ritual is out of date so we ditch

all rituals - but we need them to bind us together and we need them to

motivate us. This is a gift that Rotary clubs can offer younger Rotarians who

have largely grown up in a world that seems to be disposing rituals. We no

longer have quality rituals for coming of age or negotiating other key periods

of life. I believe the resurgence of interest in the ANZAC ceremonies by young

people is indicative of this deep human need. Well, we can provide a diet of

good, interesting rituals at many of our meetings, and such rituals will bind us

together and help to keep us motivated. Let’s write some new ones for all sorts

of occasions, lets share them with each other, out them on our websites for

everyone to use. Let’s light up Rotary with our rituals.

10 - RULES - MANUAL

And then there are the rules - the 500 of so pages of the Code of Policies and

the more readable Manual of procedures. Can we be motivated by those?

Well, I think we can. Every one of those guidelines were at some time based on

what some experienced Rotarians believed to be the best way of doing things

at the time. Some may be a little out of date, but there are processes

happening every three years where we can all be involved in changing those

rules. In the meantime, those guidelines are a means of quality control for our

organization. They’re part of the reason why Rotary is arguably the most

respected and trusted service organization in the world. I’m proud and

motivated to be part of that thoroughness. So in their own way, Rotary’s rules

help to bind us together as a quality team that does things well.

11 - FOUR WAY TEST

And then there are “rules” like the four way test that are at the heart of all we

are meant to think, say and do as Rotarians. What a fantastic challenge that is

to us as Rotarians - it’s out there on the Rotary websites of the world, it’s on

banners at our meetings, that Rotarians can be trusted because they ask, “Is it

the truth”? “Is it fair…” “Will it promote goodwill…” And “Will it be beneficial

to all”. When people see our little badge, they have a right to expect that we

will live up to that little set of rules. Well that’s a bit scary, but it’s also

motivating, and if we always followed that little set of rules, we would do more

than light up Rotary, we’d light up the world!

12 -REBELLION

So, we are bound together and motivated by our team symbols, our rituals and

our rules, but, if we are to believe Apter, we also need times when we allow

and even enjoy being a little rebellious, when we bend the rules a little, enjoy

being free and focus on changing things. As incoming District Governor, I’m not

going to stand here and go on record saying that any club should completely

ignore the recommendations in the Manual of Procedures, but I will repeat

what I’ve heard from the lips of Rotary leaders at the upper echelons of our

organization, and that is that there are no Rotary police. I’ve also heard them

say that the emphasis in clubs should be on engagement and on not

attendance. I know clubs where a members has not been able to get to

meetings for a considerable amount of time because of work commitments,

but their work is an ongoing service to the community, they still pay their dues

and help out on occasional events and that club is still proud to have them as a

member. The manual of procedures is not a hard cover book, it bends, and

there are times when we do need to bend as Rotarians.

13- CHANGE

There are times when we should change things, too, just for the heck of it.

How many clubs have everything set up the same way every week and do

things the same way. There are merits in that, and the system is probably

based on good experience, but every now and then it’s good to change things.

How about facing your meeting the opposite way, or not having a top table

one week (if that’s what you usually have), or how about running your meeting

backwards, just for fun. How about having your non Rotarian partners come in

and run the meeting one week - that was a lot of fun at our club. Let’s use our

times of rebellion, change and innovation as ways we can light up Rotary.

14 - MASTERY

In the Transactions category, Apter says we all have a need to at some time to

master things, get things right, and demonstrate our effectiveness, sometimes

in a competitive spirit. We have probably all experienced the motivation that

comes from being told, “You got it right, folks! Well done! Others didn’t get it,

but you got it right!” That’s partly why we have District awards, which can be

motivating and satisfying to clubs and club members who are feeling this need

for mastery. This is also why RI Presidents have their Presidential Citation

document which describes a list of achievements that could theoretically be

accomplished or mastered by every Rotary club in the world. This list of

challenges describes clubs who “get it right” and master the Rotary experience

in terms of each RI President’s theme. Gary Huang’s citation document

certainly describes a challenging set of tasks which are worth aspiring to in the

coming year - and I commend that document to you. So let’s use friendly

competition, the President’s citation and our District Awards as a way to

motivate us and light up rotary this coming year.

15 - COMPASSION

The other side of this domain or category is the need we have for sympathy,

co-operation, compassion, and warmth in and between our clubs. Friendly

competition is one thing, but resentful rivalry is destructive within clubs and

between clubs. Our clubs need to be places where every member can come

and feel accepted as they are, as if they were loved family members. I know

Rotarians in one of our District clubs that didn’t feel like they could ask other

people to become members because they didn’t want them to experience the

pressure to live up to other’s high demands in the club regarding attendance

and involvement in working bees. We say to new members as they consider

membership that they only have to do what they can manage, and attend as

often as they can and everything will be fine. But the reality is sometimes

different, and you might hear gossip like this, ”So and so hasn’t been to a

working bee for the past three months - how come he is still a member?” Well,

I know a club that made a decision to try and accept member’s contributions

whatever they were, and not talk about members in terms of not pulling their

weight - and recognize that things are going on in everybody’s life that we

don’t know about and that people give what they feel able to give at any

particular time. It’s quite significant that once the club made that decision, the

amount of involvement has actually increased, and most important of all,

members feel happy to invite others along and membership has grown as a

result. If our Rotary clubs felt like supportive, welcoming homes with people

who are our mates (and whatever the female equivalent is to “mate”) we

wouldn’t have any membership retention problems. People desperately need

in this modern rushing technological world a place where they can go and feel

completely accepted. So let’s use our need for warmth, compassion and

acceptance as a way to light up Rotary.

16 - SELF DEVELOPMENT

So that leads us in to the final of Apter’s domains or categories: the domain of

Relationships. At one extreme, we have a need to focus on ourselves. Yes, we

have a motto of service above self, but our motto is not service without self.

Apter, and every other school of psychology knows that if human beings are to

feel motivated, there has to be something in it for them. Despite saying things

like, “I want to give back to the community”, many join Rotary because they

also believe they’ll get access to a useful business network, because they

believe it gives them esteem in the community, because they get access to a

great range of guest speakers and so on, and all of this is OK, natural, and

normal. And more and more Rotarian leaders are realizing that we need to

promote the tangible benefits of Rotary membership to others, and we

certainly have a lot to offer.

17 - LEADERSHIP

The Rotary experience can be a great way of developing personal leadership

skills, so we need to encourage that in our clubs. We can do this by rotating

members around leadership positions at the same time as providing

supportive mentors for them, and an accepting supportive club environment. I

suspect that in some clubs, probably not in our District, we con people into

taking on leadership roles by saying they’ll be right and everyone will help, but

then, when they take on the role, we expect them to do everything properly

while we sit back and privately criticize what they do wrong. No no no! Leaders

need mentors and they need genuine support from all members, who are,

after all part of that supportive family. My firm belief is that every club could

have rotating teams of people who complete the main procedural jobs leaving

the President to run the meetings, be encouraging and give an occasional

speech (after being trained in this, if necessary) while all the members clap

encouragingly and congratulate them on making good progress. If we had

clubs like that, we wouldn’t have the problems we have in some clubs to get

Presidents - everyone would know their time was coming up, in some cases,

coming up again, but it would be fine because the experience is generally a

positive one - but it does mean we have to stop criticizing leaders behind their

backs and provide an encouraging environment.

The second way we encourage leadership, and in so doing meet that need for

self-development we all have, is to follow the advice of Warren Bennis who

wrote the classic book, On Becoming a Leader in 1989”. Bennis argues that a

leader is different from a manager (although they can be both) A leader is

someone who is able to express their unique self and follow their unique vision

and convictions. In other words, a leader is someone who is learning how to be

true to themselves. Human beings resonate with people like that and they

follow them because they see them as authentic. Now our clubs can help to

develop the leadership potential in every member by encouraging them to

share their visions for the club or Rotary, and when they have a leadership

role, support them like we support our own family members in their quests.

Our clubs can also support leadership and personal development by

encouraging members to take Rotary Leadership Institute courses and

budgeting to support members in this. It is a gift we not only give our

members, but also to Rotary and the world by making our members better

members

The other thing that meets our need for personal growth is to ensure that our

weekly programs include regular sessions that educate and edify members in

the areas of improving themselves. Sometimes we don’t think this is what

Rotary is on about, but the amazing benefit is that as Rotarians learn more

about themselves and increase their knowledge of Rotary, so their motivation

increases and the club benefits, Rotary benefits and the world benefits. So let’s

use our need for personal development as a way to light up Rotary.

18 - ALTRUISM

Now talking about how the world benefits brings us to our final need area, and

that is indeed the most obvious reason for Rotary, our need as humans to do

something for others, to be focussed on others and be focussed on making the

whole world a better place. We can allow members to meet this need in our

clubs by having a range of service projects that cover the five avenues of

service and choosing service projects that excite the actual members of the

club, and particularly those involved in the committees. To get motivating

service projects, we need to educate our members on what is available, which

might mean searching the Rotary International website for groups that need

assistance, and surveying our local community for their needs. Our club

worked through a survey completed by the local Go Goldfields committee

made up of local businesses and service organizations. If your community has

such a group, ask them what is needed in your community and see where your

club can start to meet those needs. Once we find a project, we have to keep

our club members informed of what is going on so they remain committed and

motivated to supporting it. But it doesn’t stop there, we need to get what

we’re doing emblazoned on the billboards of the world so that everyone else

knows what we’re doing as well. This very act is motivating in itself, because

when our members see their commitment to a project known to the world,

they feel that commitment to carry it through. Then, every positive bit of news

or comment on that project helps to further motivate the members as they

identify with something that is making a real difference in the world. So it

needs to go on facebook, sent to the District publicity machine, offered to the

local newspaper and radio station wherever applicable.

19 - FOUNDATION’S 6 AREAS

The final way we can meet the altruism need is to encourage regular personal

giving to, in our case, to the Foundation. Selling giving to the foundation is a

great way to satisfy the altruism need in us. Firstly, the foundation is our own

charity. Secondly, the six areas of focus of the foundation are so obviously the

huge need areas in the world that we can all believe in. Thirdly we know that

administration costs are amongst the lowest of all charity organizations in the

world and fourthly, we know the money gets to where it is needed because we

have Rotarians looking after it. So let’s use our service projects and giving to

the foundation as ways we can motivate ourselves, and our clubs to light up

Rotary.

So, Michael Apter’s gift to us is his theory of Motivation Reversal - he tells us

we all have eight key psychological needs at sometime or other. Without too

much effort, we can re-arrange our clubs to ensure that all those need states

are almost always available to our members. We can give our members some

goals to get serious about, we can give our members fun times, we can give

our members great rules and the sense of belonging to a team, we can give our

members opportunities to rebel, change and innovate, we can give our

members the challenge to do things right and enjoy friendly competition, we

can give our members a supportive, accepting network of friends, we can give

our members ways to grow and develop their leadership skills and we can give

our members ways to give to the world and make our world a better place. We

can find motivation in all of these states, and as our motivation increases,

there will come a stage when our club feels motivated and excited, and when

our club is excited, our communities will benefit and appreciate what Rotary is

doing and, and as they do that, members will want to join us, they will be

desperate to join us, and our clubs will grow, and our clubs will form other

clubs and the process will go on, and the world will become a better place and

we will feel great, because, we have accepted and fulfilled Gary Huang’s

challenge to light up Rotary!

THANK YOU

Now I would like to Introduce you to the team of people who will assist us all in

the process of lighting up Rotary - our District Team.

Could all team members please come up on the stage as I read through the

names and we’ll save our applause until the end

AG GROUP

Assistant Governor - Group 01 AG Lorraine Wilson

Assistant Governor - Group 02 AG John Millington

Assistant Governor - Group 03 AG Pam Capstick

Assistant Governor - Group 04 AG Gerardine Prendergast

Assistant Governor - Group 05 AG Janey Preston

Assistant Governor - Group 06 AG Mark Towner

Assistant Governor - Group 07 AG Douglas Ball

Assistant Governor - Group 08 AG Margaret Robinson

Assistant Governor - Group 09 AG Philip Beasley

Assistant Governor - Group 10 AG Ross Taylor

AG SERVICES

District Chair Rotary Foundation PDG Brian Trenery

Assistant Governor - Community AG Trevor Butler

Assistant Governor - International AG Stephen Ellis

Assistant Governor - Membership AG Jo White

Assistant Governor - Vocational AG Ron Pickford

Assistant Governor - Youth AG Susan Williams

GOVERNOR & EXEC GROUP

Immediate Past District Governor PDG Ken McInerney

Vice Governor PDG Ken McInerney

District Governor Elect DGE Jane Cox

District Governor Nominee DGN Stephen Lamont

District Governor Mentor PDG Chris Sims

District Secretary PP Derrick Marsden

District Treasurer PP Trevor Lea

District Web Administrator PP Pauline Stewart

District Trainer (Prep. Year) PDG Jessie Harman

FACILITATORS

Presidents 2014-2015 Jessie Harmon

President Elects 2014-2015 Jane Cox

Secretaries 2014-2015 Warren Norton

Treasurers 2014-2015 Trevor Lea

Admin Committee Chairs 2014-2015 Rob McDougal

Membership Chairs 2014-2015 Jo Clark

Public Relations Chairs 2014-2015 Pauline Stewart

Service Committee Chairs 2014-2015 Wayne Barrett

Rotary Foundation 2014-2015 Brian Trenery

District Committee Chairs Howard Randall

New Members 2014-2015 Helen Trigg