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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