Change … it’s one of those things that some people hate, while others seem to thrive on it. Oddly enough, we all have to cope with change thousands of times in our lives. In fact, on Day One we all went through a very dramatic change as we left our mother’s womb and entered the real world. And on Day Last, we will again experience a dramatic change as we leave this world and move into the next – whatever that is. In between, change is one of the constants of life.

Without changes, things can become very stale and organizations tend to go into a stage of stagnation. However, when we do introduce change, it can knock us out of our comfort zone – temporarily, at least.

Over the past month, your Management Committee has been examining and introducing a number of changes that I would like to share with you. All of these are to help our club succeed.

• New Member’s Welcome Event – On Oct. 19^th we held a social event for all new members who joined our club between Oct. 1^st 2024 and Sept. 30^th Janet Walker was our gracious host for what we hope will be an annual event. It was an opportunity for new members and members of the Management Committee to meet and find out a little bit of everyone’s background and their experience with our Club. Some really good suggestions were made to help new members “get on board” more successfully.
• Modified Policy for Late Sign-ups – As we discussed Phase 2 of our current New Members Campaign, it became clear that expecting new members to pay a portion of the membership fee when there was only one or two months left in our year didn’t make sense. So, we agreed that in cases where someone wishes to join after Oct. 1^st, they would be charged the initiation fee of $15 to cover the cost for their name badge and they would be considered “probationary members” until Jan. 1^st when they would then pay the regular annual membership fee of $40 per person. This should help us to continue active recruitment initiatives throughout the whole year.
• Guidelines for Member Recognition – After receiving a notification about a former member who passed away recently, we realized that we did not have any guidelines for handling this type of situation. Based on some past experiences where we encountered some push back from some members because we were not handling this in a consistent way, we considered not making this type of announcement at all. Then, after several members gave this issue some sober second thought, we agreed to create a guideline that enables us to recognize the contributions of members who have passed away (provided we are notified of this situation) as well as recognize the contributions of active members who have provided outstanding volunteer support in our club, when they decide it is time to step back and take a break for a while.

As we move forward, both of these situations will be appropriately noted in the next Newsletter as well as at our General Monthly Meeting. To ensure that this is handled consistently, we need the help of our members to keep us informed whenever a former or active member has passed away. Otherwise, some may be inadvertently overlooked. Please don’t let this happen.

• Profile the Special Interest Groups (SIG) – It became quite clear at the New Members Welcome event that several of our new members were not aware of all the SIGs we have and how to join in those activities. Over the past few months, new sign-up sheets have been available at our monthly meetings and there was a significant response. In addition to new people signing up, we had several new SIGs created – a Movie Matinee Group, a Trivia Night Group, at least one Pub Night Group and a Touring Vancouver Island Group. This last one is really the function of our Out & About Committee, since tour events are open to all members. In addition, a second Dining Out Group was established, since the original group’s membership had reached the “overload level”.

We will continue to have signup sheets available at monthly meetings. We also want to dedicate one of our monthly meetings to a “Show and Tell” for all of our SIGs. That way, members will have a better idea of what each group does, who the coordinator is and how to join. Active participation in one or more of our SIGs is a great way to get much more out of your membership.

Okay, that’s probably enough change for one month!! Stay tuned for other new initiatives that may be on the horizon, as we work to make sure that our club is one where members are actively involved in new initiatives that enhance their lives. We are never too old to change.

            “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. 
         We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change we seek.”

Barack Obama           

Jim McKinlay