On the afternoon of Sunday 19 November 2023, President Elect (2024-25) Catherine Baxter convened a strategic workshop of interested members to begin work on the Club’s 2024-2027 Strategic plan.

The workshop was skilfully moderated by Rotary Melbourne member, Richard Dent and begins the preparation of the new Strategic Plan that will be finalised in early 2024. A diverse group of more than 20 Rotary Melbourne members was present for this important working session to lay the foundations for Rotary Melbourne’s 2024-27 Strategic Plan.

Participants had already completed a pre-meeting questionnaire which enabled the sharpening of focus on the Club’s purpose and the areas in which attention will need to be focused to ensure the Club grows and continues to thrive. The 5 central themes to emerge were:

• Membership – Creating a well-targeted member recruitment and development process and ensuring an engaging membership experience from which members feel they are making a difference to building a better community.
• Brand positioning and presence of Rotary Melbourne drawing on our legacy of inclusiveness and our many wonderful achievements, and at the same time embracing evolving big ideas with courage and leadership in connectivity with key Melbourne organisations; broadening and deepening diversity and inclusion.
• Project suite/selection – prioritising projects against the most important local, Australian and Global issues and ensuring our Club can undertake them effectively and sustainably.
• Impact – ensuring we engage in impactful projects that meet unfilled needs, create a sustainable impact which translates into members feeling their contribution is making a difference, and as far as possible contribute further to our unique impact.
• Events, Fellowship – Gatherings and fellowship form the basis of Rotary’s capacity to mobilise and act to implement worthwhile community service projects. The appetite for regular meetings is changing and we need to adapt and develop fellowship events that respond to the needs of people in leadership roles in business, government, education, and community organisations

Next Steps:

The working Group will reconvene in February 2024 to work on refining the plans in key areas and set the shape of the final version of the 2024-27 Strategic Plan.

Work will then quickly begin on developing the Operational Plan which will form the basis of our Board’s focus and measuring progress in 2024-25.

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