Proposed South Island Amalgamation
Nick Courtney gave us an overview of the proposed amalgamation of Districts 9970 & 9980 and the opportunities this might bring for the South Island should it go forward.
“We need to vote on this proposal in March with the overall goal being how to best strengthen Rotary in the South Island” explained Nick and DGs have had Zoom meetings to discuss this proposed change by considering how we can look at new ways of making it work.
With respect to why we need to consider amalgamation at this stage, Nick shared the following reasons:
- We have declining membership that is nearing the 1,100 threshold which, if met, will require us to merge.
- By acting earlier we can better shape our future.
- The NZ population and Rotary membership itself is aging which means we need to consider new ways operate regionally.
With respect to the advantages of opting for amalgamation, Nick identified the following:
- It increases our attractiveness to new members.
- We have access to greater resources.
- It gives us a simpler operating model with significantly less duplication.
- It increases our attractiveness to larger sponsors.
- It enables us to take advantage of better communication options due to improving technologies.
Nick also noted that the new size of a combined South Island district would make us similar in size to successful overseas districts.
With respect to the challenges, these include that DGs will no longer be able to easily visit all Clubs and we will instead have to look at Cluster events to help with District wide communications.
With respect to the voting process, each Club gets one vote. If it is a “go” a team will be established to focus on how to take it forward with the target date for the change being July 1st 2022.
“So how will it affect us?” asked Nick? He suggested that initially it will not be that noticeable but - as noted by Paul Harris - change will come as the pace of change continues to accelerate.
In concluding his presentation Nick suggested that going forward we will need to be looking at how we continue to set up and develop clubs in our new district in order to best meet changing times with new and innovative approaches.