By Rita Weighill - As a Rotarian please help to advance the Rotary story of service. While January was Rotary Awareness Month, wouldn't it be "beneficial to all concerned" if all Rotarians made a commitment to make every month Rotary Awareness Month?   Being a member of one of the worlds largest service focused organizations offers members a remarkable introduction to community accountability and global understanding.
 

It's easy to become so involved in an activity that we forget to inform others outside our Club or to let others know how they too can get connected. You are invited to review the below inventory to see how many times in the past three months your Club has connected with the community to externally: 

(1) Promote an international Rotarian who attended your Club/community

(2) Promote your Club activity or a project completed for the community

(3) Promote your Club sponsored activity outside your immediate community

(4) Promote your Club Speaker or a special Club event

(5) Promote any accomplishments or goals set by District 6040 or Rotary International

(6) Promote a new membership drive

The really good news is that the options for informing others about Rotary have greatly expanded beyond public service announcements (PSA) and news releases. While those remain good tools to use, today's technologically connected world has opened up new and exciting opportunities that includes social media represented through podcasts, blogs, Facebook (750 million users), Twitter (40 million tweets per day), and the list of social media tools is growing daily. The Internet offers many open resource community calendars and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) publishes news and can deliver that same news directly to your audience through their preferred/selected news resources.

 

Some Clubs have embraced the importance of promotion through neighborhood billboards, printed brochures, sponsoring community events, newspaper supplements, and providing resource speakers in other organizations to promote Rotary. The opportunities to share news about Rotary are limited only to a Club's creative thinking and its willingness to embrace new technology.

 

District 6040 is 2,500 members strong and those who are included in that membership have an incredible opportunity to positively impact our District's public image. While Rotary Awareness Month may have launched in January, we can collectively use the next 11 months to make 2012 as THE year that Rotary District 6040 became the most recognized, most appreciated and that enlisted the most new members. That is truly a goal that would beneficial to all.