Governor Don's Message

by Gov Don Dudey

Why is membership growth so important?

I know you have been hearing membership growth for a long time and, after awhile, we start to close our ears and actions toward it. But, the bottom line is two things: continuity of our clubs and continued and/or growth in the amount of service we provide our communities.

Continuity of our clubs is paramount to you and your community. Yes, small clubs can continue doing their service work, but after a period of time, when the same members are doing everything all the time, they simply wear out. This is exactly what happened to our Columbia, Maryland club, the officers had served 5 or 6 times and no one in the club was helping out on the projects. Eventually, they said enough is enough and folded the club. This is the last thing anyone wants of a Kiwanis club. Membership growth is critical so that we don't have this "burn out" situation in any club.

Secondly, if your club membership has stayed the same over the past 3 years or more then likely the same Kiwanians are doing the same projects and your club has not added any new projects nor has your club increased the number of service hours they perform during each year. Again, the way to improve this situation is to increase the number of members within your club. More "hands" (Kiwanians) means more service we can provide to our communities.

There are various ways a club can work in improving their membership, and your LTG is out there to help your club work on those different ways. If you still need ideas, the District Club Growth Committee within your region has many ideas. Call Past Governor Art Riley for any help you might need. I know this committee has been actively working with many clubs and have had success with the clubs they worked with, give them a call now.

I have instituted a Membership Growth Contest during the month of May-June. The club with the highest percentage of growth during these two months will receive a Division award. Then each Division winner will be eligible to receive the top prize of $750 or five honorable mention prizes of $250. Your club can use it towards anything they would like, but preferably some service project or program they are working on, like your SLP program. Your LTG can give you more specifics, if needed, on this contest. The winners will be announced at our Lynchburg VA District Convention in August.

KiwanisOne Day is April 10, 2010 and it is a great way any club can "show off" what Kiwanis is all about. I hope your club is participating in this great event - all Kiwanis clubs across the US are conducting a service project on the same day, telling everyone about Kiwanis and what service we provide to our communities. If your club can't work on April 10, then any day during the month of April will work, but we need/must tell everyone - newspapers, flyers, radio or TV- what this KiwanisOne Day is all and how Kiwanis helps their communities.

I know many clubs are actively working on membership growth so keep up the great work, and for those clubs who have not started, I encourage you to start now, it's not to late to begin growing. Again, the more "hands" (Kiwanians) we have the more service we can do for our communities. Let's all grow and celebrate our successes in Lynchburg.

Yours in Service

Don L. Dudey
Governor