President’s Address
2025/26 New President’s Opening Address to Members
We are a small club of mature members, some of which by virtue of age and/or health, places limits on what we can do. This is a simple statement of fact. As a club we are not unusual in this. For this reason, we must be realistic in our aspirations, so I’m not going to reel off a list or goals, but some focus areas I’d like to concentrate on. The level of achievement in each will be equal to the amount of effort we can collectively bring to bear.
As you know from our recent Special Business Meeting, we do not have sufficient members willing and able to chair all the usual committees. This has forced a change whereby instead of the historic Club Council you will all be familiar with; we will run with a small Leadership Team. This will comprise the President, Hon Secretary, Hon Treasurer, the Immediate Past President and Rotarian William Stevens who will have the role of ad-hoc project co-ordinator. The first meeting of this new Leadership Team will take place on Thursday 17th July.
I will continue to provide to members a verbal report of the actions and decisions to come out of those meetings but also, I want to expand discussion about club activities, both current, planned and proposed, during our weekly lunch gatherings. I want to see this become a formal part of the agenda and I have discussed this with the Hon Secretary, and it is agreed we can accommodate this by taking the time dedicated to fellowship at the end. Given the small size of our group, plenty of fellowship occurs around the table during the meal anyway. I hope to see plenty of member participation and feedback.
Volunteers will be called for to lead and deliver projects as they are identified and regular and timely reports are to be submitted to the Leadership Team via the project co-ordinator. At this point I cannot predict how well this arrangement will work and I expect modifications will be necessary along the way. However, I earnestly seek everyone’s cooperation as we move forward.
Last year a lot of work went into creating a Corporate Membership option for this club and a great deal of thanks are owed to Graham Syrett and the membership committee for achieving that. It was very satisfying therefore to report recently that we had secured two new Corporate Members (and I learned whilst on holiday in the past two weeks, that we possibly have a third!). It might be said that getting these organisations to agree to become Corporate Members was the easy part and I’m sure a few eyebrows will be raised at that! The difficult task will be to quickly integrate them into our club and immediately get them engaged in projects. We must not risk disappointment and a waning of enthusiasm through a lack of activity.
I mentioned focus areas that I would like to concentrate on. These are:
Social events. Feedback from two business events recently which involved spouses and partners was very positive and I know at least one new member who expected we would do a lot more of this sort of thing. Yes, we have our Charter Night, a Christmas Lunch, an annual Quiz Night plus Presidents Drinks in January but we should do far more. In fact, I would like to see someone come forward to be a social secretary to organise a bigger programme. I think this would be an interesting and rewarding role.
More publicity. One of our new Corporate Members is Tendring District Council and working with them on joint activity will be supported by their PR machine and Press Office. I think we can leverage and exploit that resource, but it will require focus and dedication from us.
Social Media. One of our daughter clubs, Harwich and Dovercourt, recently ran a social media campaign called The Big Community Giveaway. The level of interest and engagement it generated was simply staggering and really helped to put the club front and centre in the minds of the public in their area. Our Hon Sec and I have reached out to the architect of that programme with a view to possibly replicating elements of it for our club.
New membership drive. Gaining new Corporate Members is a satisfying achievement but they can open-up opportunities to engage with more people, to promote what we do and hopefully gain interest and membership enquiries. For example, one of our Corporate Members is the local 1,700 pupil school. That’s 1,700 sets of parents we can get in front of, assisted by the pupil achievement awards we have agreed to sponsor.
Foundation. Specifically, End Polio Now programme. Last year we ran an event to support World Polio Day. This was oversubscribed so I would like to see if we can be bigger and bolder this year.
Community Service. Thanks to Derek Emmerson and his committee we achieved much last year with numerous projects. I want to see us maintain all our regular activities and build many more with the support of our Corporate Members.
Youth. With Clacton Coastal Academy (now Lift Clacton) coming on as a Corporate Member, and having an exceedingly enthusiastic Principal and Leadership Team, they are already generating ideas we can run together. Also, they are keen to examine and engage with Rotary GB&I’s Youth Programme, even offering to host some of them. The sky’s the limit here and we must not drop the ball here because the potential is huge.
So to finish, I just want to say that if at this time next year it’s apparent that all I’ve achieved is for the club to tread water, then my presidency will be remembered as wholly unremarkable – and I don’t want that…and neither should you because this is our club and without you I can do very little.
Thank you
Robert Suttling, President