Enhancing Rotaract

I read this article about a rotaractor who did a presentation in Preconvention Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. Motivating and enjoyable.

Motivation and communication

Transcript from Emily Wood’s presentation “Enhancing Rotaract: Engaging Members and Motivating Volunteers”, which was delivered on Saturday 5 May at the Rotaract Preconvention Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.

Enhancing Rotaract: 

Engaging Members and Motivating Volunteers

Membership – it’s the eternal challenge for volunteer organisations, and Rotary and Rotaract are no exception. In fact, Rotaract now faces even greater challenges in recruiting new members as other volunteer organisations look to recruit younger generations.

The question is: How do we attract – and then retain – these volunteer members? Recruitment is often spoken of as a significant challenge, but engaging and retaining current members is just as important as motivating new volunteers to get involved.

My name is Emily Wood and in addition to being a keen Rotaractor, I’m a communication consultant and a past Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.

Enhancing Rotaract research project

While I was oversees completing my Masters in International Public Relations I wanted to do something to give back to Rotary for giving me the best year of my life. So, for my research dissertation I decided to look at how communication could be used to increase Rotaract’s brand recognition and recruitment success.

Communication can be an incredibly powerful tool, particularly in the recruitment of volunteers. But in order for communication to be truly effective, you must first understand who you are communicating with.

Effective communication is the right people getting the right information at the right time.

My research started with identifying the ‘right people’. I wanted to understand not only who Rotaractors are, but why they are Rotaractors. I wanted to understand what motivates Rotaractors to get involved.

Research shows that people are more likely to get involved – and stay involved – if the volunteer activity matches their motivations.

So, what motivates Rotaractors?

533 Rotaractors from 79 different countries completed an online questionnaire that asked them what motivated them to become volunteer members of Rotaract. What was wonderful to see was that Rotaractors throughout the world, no matter what country they were from, were motivated by the same three factors.

1.The desire to help others
At its core, Rotaract is a service organsiation. Through community service and international service we help those in need. So, it stands to reason that members of Rotaract are motivated by the the desire to help others. We wouldn’t be Rotaractors if we weren’t.

2.The desire to learn new things
Through Rotaract we have the opportunity to learn more about ourselves and the world. And through the avenue of professional development we are able to develop new skills that will help us in both our personal and professional lives.

3.The desire to make new friends
Rotaract is great way to build friendships with new people. Like many of you, I’ve met some wonderful people through Rotaract who I enjoy spending time with and who I now call my friends. We may be from very different walks of life, but we have a lot in common. And, I probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet them otherwise.

From these results, we can see that the opportunities that Rotaract provides matches what motivates us to become involved.

• Community and international service satisfies our desire to help others;
• Professional development satisfies our desire to learn new things; and
• Club service satisfies our desire to make new friends.

 

What does this mean for communication?

Well, communication tailored to address motivations to volunteer is proven to be more appealing and influential. So, if you know what motivates people to volunteer and you tailor your recruitment communication to those motivations, your communication will be more effective.
Our motives to volunteering are satisfied by what Rotaract has to offer. Our challenge in recruitment is being able to communicate this message – not only to potential members, but also to Rotarians, family and friends.

Educating all members of the Rotary family is incredibly important. My research showed that 60% of Rotaractors found out about the program from a family member or friend who was a Rotarian and Rotaractor. A further 23% find out about it from a Rotary club or program. This means an incredible 83% of recruitment is attributed to members of the Rotary family sharing the Rotaract message.

With this in mind, we need to make sure Rotarians, Interactors, and participants of RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards), Youth Exchange and a whole host of other Rotary programs know what Rotaract is.
The more people know about and fully understand Rotaract, the greater the potential for increasing brand awareness and recruitment success.

However, this doesn’t mean you can forget about other forms of communication. A potential member may first hear about Rotaract from a current Rotaractor or Rotarian, but that first communication may not be enough to secure membership. What if they want more information? Are you able to give them a brochure or flyer? What about if they Google your club? Will they be able to find your website?

There are a large number of possibilities for communicating with potential members. What you need to do is figure out which communication channels are most appropriate for your club. For example, if you have a website, are you keeping the information up to date? The same applies for social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

So, what is our message?

We now know that Rotaractors are motivated to volunteer by the desires to help others, learn new skills and make new friends, but how do we use this in our communication?

In my district, we have adopted the following tagline… Help. Learn. Enjoy.

Rotaract is an opportunity for young adults aged 18 to 30 to help local and global communities, to develop new knowledge and skills, and to have fun with friends – to help, learn and enjoy.

Over the past two years our district has been using this tag line to promote both Rotary and Rotaract.
What started as a bus advertising campaign moved on to a newspaper article and district brochure. Then, to an online competition within my Rotaract club.

Our President Bowen was one of the ‘models’ in the campaign, so we had a competition to see who could snap the most photos of him and post them on Facebook.

It was all just a bit of fun, but it got people talking about the campaign.

We then took it further by putting a story about it on our website (www.rotaract9630.wordpress.com) and then getting publicity in Rotary Down Under magazine.

This campaign was not just about letting people know about Rotaract and why they should get involved. It was also about reminding current members why they should continue to be involved. Sometimes we just need a reminder. The competition brought us closer together and made us a stronger club.
Remember, engaging and retaining current members is just as important as motivating new volunteers to get involved.

What can you learn from this research and campaign?
Communication can come in many different forms. Each Rotaract club is unique and you will need to decide what communication is best for your club. But, there are a few lessons that I hope will be useful for you.
First, tailor your communication to match what motivates people to join Rotaract. Remember, we are motivated by the desires to help others, learn new skills and make new friends. Our communication needs to reflect this.

Second, make sure that you promote a consistent image of Rotaract. Decide on who you are as a Rotaractor, a club and district, and then tell your audience. But, once you decide on your message, stick with it. Consistency will reinforce the Rotaract brand. Inconsistency will just confuse people.
Make sure you also remember the rule for effective communication – ‘the right people, getting the right information, at the right time’. Who is your audience, what is your message, how are you going to get it to them, and when? Are you going to communicate via your club bulletin or through the media? There are so many different options for you to explore.

Last but not least, BE ROTARACT! We as individuals are the most powerful form of communication. Word of mouth is a big part of how we recruit new members and we should not forget that. We need to be ambassadors for our clubs, our districts and the Rotaract program as a whole. If we can show everyday that Rotaract gives us the opportunity to help others, learn new skills and make new friends, we will be well on our way to increasing Rotaract’s brand recognition and recruitment success.

Not only that, by talking about what motivates us to volunteer, we can remind current members why they became involved and why they should stick around.

Hopefully, at the end of the day, this will help us with… Enhancing Rotaract.

Source:  http://enhancingrotaract.wordpress.com/motivation-and-communication/

A Brief Insight of Petronas

Yesterday after my club meeting, we had DRR Sanjeev to share with us a little about what he do as a Front End Engineer in Petronas. I find it very interesting to get to know of a field which I personally have almost zero idea about.

He started his presentation by showing us a map of places across Malaysia where oil and gas are available. He also explained about how the country's coastline is determined, 20 nautical miles and 100 nautical miles-ish from the coast kind of thing. He shared with us on how losing ownership of a rock on the sea will effect our coast, for example the case in Brunei and also in Singapore.

We were exposed to how it all begin, from the exploration of the sea bed and examining the image of the contents beneath it, to the setup of platforms and drilling of wells. The average time for a well to be harvesting is around 5 to 10 years, and of course it does depends on the amount of oil available. There are different types of platforms catering for different depth. There are those which are built right from the sea bed and also those floating on the sea water.

Sanjeev shared a lot of things that we might not had known all this while (Well, maybe it's just me not knowing).

1. In the past, the extraction of oil was the main project for Petronas. While getting the oil out of the sea bed, there will be small amount of gas which is be extracted along with it. They used to burn these small amount of gas, that's why we would see a flare on these platforms. However, recently they had stopped burning these gas off, due to a new policy by the government. They will have to contain these gas and ship it.

2. During the extraction of oil, they don't actually suck the oil out of the seabed. After drilling down, they will let the difference in pressure work its wonder, and the oil will flow up to the platform (Hmm.. Didn't really know that). Therefore, they usually are only able to extract around 20-40% of the oil under the sea bed due to the pressure.

3. For the past 10 years plus, there are pipe lines for gas built throughout Peninsula Malaysia. These pipe lines are used to transfer gas from Kertih to all parts of Malaysia. Petronas, being the only supplier of NGV gas, usually have their petrol stations with NGV pumps built above or near these pipelines. Even our famous KLCC, is built above one of these pipe lines. KLCC itself is running on these gas, ie. they produce their own electricity for the whole building using gas. Cool..!!

Petronas has a long history in Malaysia, it was incorporated since 17 August 1974 and had always been the main source of revenue of the country. Being a company owned by the government, Petronas had explored around Malaysia for source of petroleum and gas, building refineries and plants. Besides developing locally, Petronas had spread itself to 35 countries around the world.

A few important places to know about on oil and gas are Kertih for Peninsula Malaysia, Miri and Bintulu for Sarawak, Labuan and Kota Kinabalu for Sabah. The first petroleum well and the only onshore well we have is located in Miri, Sarawak, known as the "The Grand Old Lady". Founded by Shell in 1910, this well had been operating for 62 long years. Other wells are all offshore, that is from the sea bed.

Bintulu, Sarawak is main town hosts the Petronas Liquidified Natural Gas (LNG) Complex, which is currently the world’s largest liquefied natural gas production facility. Gas from offshore around Sarawak coast are transported to this facility to be liquefied and transported to other countries. Even natural gas from Sabah is transported to this facility through a 500km pipeline from Sabah.

Kertih is the main point for oil and gas for the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia. Remember the gas pipelines across whole of Malaysia mentioned above? It all starts here.

Personally, I find this Professional Development talk by Sanjeev very interesting and inspiring. It's something that we use all the time, petrol and gas. And getting to know a bit more on what is the real deal and how is it done, just makes me feel like appreciating and paying a bit more respect to the people working behind that makes pumping our petrol at the station such an easy process. Thank you so so much...!!

* the facts above are written according to what I remembered from the talk, so.. hehehe.. they might not be 101% accurate.. ^^