Wednesday 4 June 2014

E-Communication@Rotary by Rtn.Aslam Merchant

Meet Report : 4th June, 2014.

e-Communication@Rotary

Rotary International has been emphasizing use of e-Communication to the Rotary Clubs around the world.  Our DGE Ajay Gupta too is extremely enthusiastic of taking the e-Communication in Rotary District 3140 to the next level.  His vision is to ensure all Clubs in the District are E friendly, E Alert and E Savvy to be able to make maximum use of eCommunication techniques and social media for internal and external communication as well as a powerful PR tool.  With this in mind, the District has created a position of E-Administrator for every Club…. perhaps the first District globally to make this move.  For the Rotary Year 2014-15, I have been appointed as the E-Admin for our Club.

Thanks to President Krishna Kejriwal, PE Mohan Joshi and PP Chandramohan Saigal, I was given the opportunity to address the Club on eCommunication@Rotary... to understand where we are currently and where we would like to go with the support of 150+ Members using various eCommunication channels available at our disposal today.

The responsibilities of any Rotary Club are sustaining and increasing membership, participation in service projects, supporting TRF finances and programmes and developing leaders beyond the Club level.  E-Communication is a very powerful tool to fulfil these responsibilities. Use of technology facilitates seamless communication with members, with the District and other Clubs globally as well as with public at large.  The possibilities are endless if every member of the Club joins in this mission by actively participating in it.

Our Club has been at the forefront of using technology in its day-to-day functioning.  Our Club’s Website www.rcbw.org is one of the most comprehensive websites in the Rotary World giving information relevant to every visitor, be it our own member or a member from another club, district officials, potential members and anyone interested in knowing about rotary in general and about our club in particular.  A regular visit by our members will help them in keeping updated about the programmes and events, view photo-gallery, know the latest news from RI, access to club’s weekly bulletin and much more.  Members are encouraged to share the links on our website with their friends and relatives either thru’ emails or on social media. 

Social Media is gaining immense popularity since the last few years and Rotary International has been encouraging the Clubs to have a presence on it to connect with members and non-members alike.  Our Club has a presence on Facebook where a Closed Group of more than 90 Members has been created.  However, lack of ‘posts’ and visits by the members on the FB Group Page has served limited purpose.  Once the traffic on the FB Group increases and more members use it to talk about the projects or project ideas, the fellow-members can share what they like on their personal timelines thus making their circle of friends aware of the rotary projects.  The Club is yet to try out other social media channels like Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Video Conferencing, Group Chats, etc. and suggestions / views of the members are invited to expand our social media presence to achieve our goals.

Our Club was one of the first to subscribe to “Roster on Wheels” (ROW) – an App for Smartphones.  This revolutionary App has been developed by a Mumbai-based IT Company and has received the approval from District 3140.  This App gives access to all the details of the Club Members which are otherwise available in the printed club roster, but with quick search modes by name, classification, family or blood group.  The other exciting feature of this App is the ability to communicate with fellow-members and club officials about meeting schedules, birthdays and anniversaries, events, announcements and flash news on a real-time basis.  Members are requested to download this App and use it for staying in touch with the club activities.

Our District will be launching a new website www.rotarydistrict3140.com this July, which will be a permanent district website unlike the earlier ones which changed every year.  The website will be extremely interactive requiring the Clubs to post details of projects, events, minutes of the meetings, attendance, OCV files, etc.  Certain features of the website will be synced with ROW to avoid duplicating data entry efforts for the Club.

It is once again emphasized that to successfully use e-Communication as a tool to achieve our goals, we need active participation of all the 150+ members of our Club.

I thank Rtn.Haituk Desai for my formal introduction at the meeting and PP Rtn.Prakash Shah for the formal vote of thanks.

-Rtn.Aslam Merchant


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