8 Posts Packed Full of Tips for Growing Your Rotary Club Speakers Program

Robyn Braley speaking at a District 5360 event

Written by Robyn T. Braley

A strong speaker program is key to sustaining a healthy and vibrant Rotary club. Meetings are a time for coming together, being refreshed, renewed and re energized. 

Every time I tweet the following from our BTRB twitter account I receive retweets. 

“If you want to develop a positive outlook, hang out with positive people. Rotarians know that positivity is positively contagious. That's a positive!" 

-Robyn T. Braley 

It is safe to assume you have experienced more than one occasion when you were going through a rough patch in your career or personal life. As a Rotarian, going to your meeting or anywhere else was the last thing you wanted to do. 

But you went. Unexpectedly, the speaker that day said something that lifted you up and caused you so see things differently.  Their topic had no relevance whatsoever to what you were going through.

I've had troubled times when stimulating conversation with fellow Rotarians around our luncheon table raised my spirits. More than that, the discussion caused me to think differently about my problems. I found a solution when I thought one was impossible.

Part 5; Tips for Promoting Guest Speakers as Membership Growth Tool

Mountaineer and Speaker Tom Valentine

Written by Robyn T. Braley

This is the last in my series about how to develop impact Rotary Club meetings. In this post, I explain how to bundle programs to make them easy to promote within your club and community. 

Developing a quality speaker program engages and inspires Rotarians. Great programs can also play a significant role in attracting new members and raising the club profile in the community.

Creating Promotable Concepts

There is no one way to do this. You might choose one outstanding speaker to build a promotion campaign around. Another approach is to bundle 3-4 programs representing the variety of topics offered during a typical Rotary year. 

• Not-for-profit leader
• Business leader
• Educational leader
• Sports leader
• Healthcare leader
• Media personality

Part 4: Field Trips Play an Important Role in Rotary Program Scheduling

Let your imagination go wild. Why not?

 Written by Robyn T. Braley 

Field trips can play an important role in a club schedule. They provide an opportunity to “experience it firsthand” rather than just hearing about it from a speaker in a meeting.

As leaders, Rotarians are well versed about many aspects of their communities. Field trips to manufacturing plants, public infrastructural facilities, agricultural facilities, human service organizations, food processing plants or other destinations can provide background and understanding about important things you would not gain through a speaker or video alone.

Touring a not-for-profit center that has requested funding support can help to clarify their need. Visiting a drop-in shelter or food bank can be deeply disturbing and provide first-hand knowledge about the issues they face.

Field Trip Purpose

• To gain insight and knowledge
• To experience processes and procedures
• To provide unique fellowship opportunities

Field Trips require hours of work to organize, promote and stage. If you have 3-4 per year, that is a lot. As a rule of thumb, if there is no value in visiting a site other than hearing a good presentation, then book the program for your club.

Part 3 Insider Tips for Building a Strong Rotary Club Speaker Program; The Mechanics

Engaging, Informing, Challenging, Entertaining, Inspiring

Written by Robyn T. Braley

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series I explained why a strong speaker program is important to a Rotary Club. 

To repeat, quality meetings add value to the Rotary experience by keeping existing members engaged. Quality meetings provide a reason to invite prospective members and other guests.

A strong program will also provide opportunities to create public relations events that attract mainstream media and can be promoted on social media. More about that in a later post.

Before reading this, you may want to check out the first two posts

Part 1 Why a Strong Rotary Club Speaker's Program is Important

Part 2  A Winning Strategy for Building Strong Rotary Club Speaker Programs 

Managing the Bookings

The most effective program committees include some of the busiest members of the club. That also means they won’t be patient wasting time “to and froing” about dates, speaker appropriateness, etc.

38 Quotes to Challenge, Inspire, Motivate, Encourage, Entertain and Uplift!

Original quotes written by Robyn T. Braley

Written by Robyn T. Braley

I have to fess up. I tweet. Not only do I tweet, but I tweet often. 

Soon after I started tweeting I realized that I could add value by writing original inspirational, uplifting, leadership, branding and positive lifestyle content. 

In social media you’ll find 1,000’s of quotes from business, military, political, historical, biblical, sports, academic and any other kind of thought leader you can name. 

There are also quotes from those who think they are leaders but the poor quality of their content suggests otherwise. The primary way to build credibility and attract a large social media audience is to provide quality content. The second tip is to stick to the general rules;

• Know your audience
• Don’t over promote yourself, your business or cause
• Don’t be rude
• Don’t be hateful
• Don’t send tweets that few people understand 

Encourage and Inspire

Leaders of service clubs, breakfast clubs and business, education, association, religious or community groups often start or finish their meetings with a quote that provides further insight into the topic at hand. They...

• Encourage
• Challenge 
• Inspire
• Amuse

Part 2; Building a Winning Rotary Club Speakers Program

Winning programs create energy and enthusiasm. 

Written by Robyn T. Braley

Quality programs play a key role in sustaining Rotarian's interest while motivating, inspiring, challenging and sometimes entertaining them. Great programs go a long way to keeping club members engaged.

Meetings play a key role in marketing the club at different levels. The first impressions made on visitors, potential members and others impacts … well … a lot of things.

In Part 1 I laid the foundation by asking the question ‘Can Your Club’s Speaker’s Program be Improved?’ In this post I provide tips for taking the next step in building a program strategy. 

Part 1; Can Your Club’s Speaker’s Program be Improved

Jack Toth spoke about working with First Nations youth

Written by Robyn T Braley

A strong Speaker’s Program plays an important role in keeping Rotary clubs healthy and vibrant. Strong programs help keep members engaged. 

Put another way, programs with insight, information, entertainment or other relevant content give members another reason to look forward to each meeting.

But, exceptional programs don’t just happen. They require careful thought and planning.

I am very fortunate. My club, the Calgary West Rotary Club, has a decades long reputation for great programs. I have served on our program committee as a member or as the Chair for more than 12 years.

While I am mostly leaning on that experience to write this series, I also include insight gained as the Executive Director of a community based organization that staged 4-6 Gospel concerts per year. They were produced in a 1,200 seat church or in one of our city's two major concert halls that sat 2,200 and 2,700.