Tuesday, February 28, 2012

End to the February Business Networking Events





February Business Month Events Come to a Close - and What an Ending!

Wow, what a great month of Business Networking Events ending with a fascinating vocational tour and presentation of Cell Care - and followed by a relaxing catered event at the Melbourne Golf Academy.

The presentation of Cell Care was interesting and I learned so much about this aspect of medical science. Not many people know that there are private cord blood banks that will collect and store the nutrient rich blood from the umbilical cord as protection from future disease.

The photos above show the warehouse where the stem cells are stored in Nitrogen at -196 celsius for up to 18 years!

Our big thanks to Greg for organising last night which had rave reviews from all who participated - and our guests who had come along. If I can pass on the feedback from our visitors Shruti (a nurse), who said, "this was the most informative presentation and tour I have ever been on. Please pass on my thanks to your club for allowing me the opportunity to see this. As a nurse, I never knew this was available - please include me in future events".
Similarly, we had great feedback from our other guests Ghandi who thanked us on behalf of RC Braeside for running the business events that he and Cheryl participated in. The staff of Cell Care, Lynn, Julia and Kristy also joined us at Melbourne Golf Academy for supper and there will be opportunities for us to partner with Cell Care and put them in contact with ARHF and other Rotary organisations to assist for funding. Overall a successful evening.

Our next business month will be in July and already our speakers have been booked and our vocational tour will be booked and organised by Jayde who has some ideas of where we could go and see - one suggestion is visiting the Monash Intensive Care Unit. Standby for more details as in the next month, I will be creating the flyers for July's talks - hopefully we'll have a venue sorted out by that stage as this is the only thing that I'm having panic attacks about....

Short Message from Susan:

I received the Clubs card yesterday please say thanks to all for kind thoughts.
I am doing ok but have no feeling in left knee and some in right. It seems my discs were "shattered" and in a bad way. This has compressed the nerves to the knees. So I walk "like a drunk" and my left knee "buckles" under me. It may take 6 months to improve. I am now doing small daily walks - today's target is 12. Pain is bearable with medicine. So all in all I am close to where I should be at this stage. No idea of discharge but some talk of going to rehab.

Have a great week and see you all next Monday night - back to normal routine!

Regards

Helen

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Helen's Mid Week Update - District Marketing

Hello again everyone

I just attended the District Marketing Committee's monthly breakfast meeting. This committee was set up with representatives from each club in our District who are enthuasiastic for promoting the Rotary message. Although at our meetings, we would have on average 7-8 people attending, we still need to get more clubs actively involved in this strategic marketing committee.

Our aim is to engage with our clubs and come up with ideas of how Rotary can be promoted within our own communities; but also look at our internal image.

This morning's session was a great brainstorm of ideas of what we can do to work with clubs to look at both their internal and external marketing and image.

One of the ideas that was bandied around was the importance of partnering with our community - inparticularly, the council who are more than happy with having local community groups such as Rotary involved. We simply don't do enough of it. Also, the idea of 'bringing back to business' was a big discussion point and this is where the business networking events came into play with a lot of interest shown in what we do every few months. I have also had interest from other Rotary Clubs in our district who are looking at our model of business events to roll out to their own clubs - or use variations - such as a new role of: Business Liaison person in one of their club duties. So get ready for next year when we start to bring business back into Rotary across the District.

Another factor was having the role of Marketing uplifted to one at President or President Elect level and one in which looks at our own internal image. For example, do we present the right image? Do we act as good hosts to guests? Are our venues presentable to guests? Does the AV equipment work? etc.

Unfortunately, a bit of negative feedback for our club (which wasn't highlighted to me at the time it happened) was that one of our guest speakers was told to pay for her meal. Luckily, it wasn't during a business networking event but it highlighted to me that whoever is at the door, please know who our guest speaker is on those nights and don't request payment as a matter of courtesy. It also highlights the role of the host (or everyone's role actually when the host is not around) to ensure our guests are made welcome.

But that was in the past and we can't do much about that now and since then, we have come a long way as the feedback from many guests from our events lay testimony to being made to feel welcome, enjoying the presentations and the warmness of our people. So keep up the great work.

I do hope that in all this, sometimes please let it be known that I'm here for you. Sometimes I can be run off my feet or my mind a million miles away while I'm focussing on the business events but please don't think that I have your best interests as a club. If you have an idea, if you would like to help out in any way, all you need to do is ask - then do. You will have my support.

Sometimes, I can't see the forest through the trees and I can steam ahead with my own ideas but I value the people who have ideas, who are willing to muck in and give it a shot - within their own time committments - and help out in their own way.

One of the dangers facing many Rotary clubs in our district and across the world is redundancy and apathy. This doesn't sit comfortably with me because I have seen the good that Rotary does across the world and in my own naive way, I just can't see why anyone wouldn't be involved in Rotary. But we are our own worst enemy and if we can change one little thing at a time when it comes to our own image, how we project ourselves to others, how we interact with others, how we connect with others in our community and then promote Rotary we would have people wanting to be involved.

Just a reminder that we have our Rotary Illumination event on tonight at Fed Square in Melbourne. If you;re thinking of going along - come around 8pm where inspiring videos of Rotary by well known people like Jackie Chan and Hugh Jackman talk about polio eradication. The show will be officially open by the Lord Mayor of Melbourne and it's sure to be a talking point of everyone there. If you don't get to tonight;s lighting up ceremony (and where Melbourne will take stage along with London, Paris, Rome, and many other cities who have done the same), you will see the Rotary promotion across Federation Square for the next few days.

Anyway, I've rambled on so I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and see you on Monday night.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Helen's Headlines - Monday 20th February 2012

Apologies for the slight delay in uploading my blog posts as I'm finding it hard to be as responsive as I was previously. This job is quite busy and hours long so the last thing I want to do after work is sit in front of a computer. On the plus side, the work is rewarding, I'm working with a wonderful team of people and it's a pleasure to go into work every day which is a long way from where I was last year!

Now to Rotary matters at hand...

Well our last of the guest speakers for the Connecting Business with Community networking events have finished and I hope that everyone enjoyed the February series! Admittedly I did enjoy them all and learned so much about the challenges that businesses undergo nowadays to grow and develop their business to keep our economy going.

In particularly I learned that technology and social media are changing the face of business; that what we knew about marketing in the past, cannot be used in the future - through connected online networks, people can decide whether your business lives or dies. I learned some simple techniques to save some money and that being environmentally friendly doesn't mean it costing me money and I learned that there's a small group of volunteers out there who provide mentoring services to businesses in need - that when there are droughts, floods or natural disasters - the livelihood of people goes and they would need just as much support to re-establish their business as others who haven't gone through this trauma.

Thank you to Greg, Ian and Philip for your assistance with the co-ordination of these events and thanks to everyone for being great hosts and making all our guests feel welcome.

The July events are already in progress. I've got a couple of speakers booked already. The topics will be on: "How to Increase Profits of Your Business"; "Closing Your Business" (hope that it's not too depressing). I'm thinking of a third speaker from Monash Health Foundation to talk about 'Corporate Social Responsibility: What Businesses Can Do to Connect with their Community" and followed by a vocational tour of the Intensive Care Unit. The benefit of these events now is that I have guest speakers approaching me to come to speak at our events and I have to fend them off for a few months! (We still need to actively promote these into our local area).

On an aside, I am now part of the District Vocational Services Committee for 2012-2013 with the aim to roll out these business networking events across other clubs who may like to do the same. The Vocational Service suite of programs are being revamped and in DGN's year are more likely to receive much more prominence than they have in previous years so we can 'get the business back to Rotary'. I have been asked to present the concept to PETS on Sunday 4th March and to the District Conference in April. However, now scratching my head to think up of what to say and need to find some time to create the presentation!

Other than that, I had an email from our GSE Recipient Kathryn who mentioned that she is getting married to Hayden on 1 March and that she is quite excited. She is leaving RMIT due to organisational restructuring and just looking forward to getting married and going overseas on her honeymoon then exploring job opportunities when she gets back. She passes on her regards to the club.

You may have seen by now the flyer for the Welcoming Dinner for the Incoming GSE team on Tuesday 27 March at Dingley International. We will not have our regular Monday meeting and instead, should you and your partner join us on this night, you are welcome to attend. It is $40 for a 2 course meal and it promises to be an enjoyable night as these nights always are. Come and learn about the culture of the Texans - and I do hope they will be wearing big cowboy hats and belt buckles!

Speedy Recovery

My best wishes also goes to Susan who has taken a leave of absence for a few months to undergo surgery for her back. I hope that this will finally ease her back pain so that she can get mobile again.

Also to Sheila, it's always difficult when we're in pain that stops our mobility so I hope that the issue is sorted to get back on your feet!

We were shocked to hear the news of Kevin who came off his bike and we wish him a speedy recovery and rehab to get back to his usual self and see him back at the club once again.

Global Illumination Ceremony

For those of you who are interested, on Saturday night the End Polio Now global illumination ceremony will occur at Federation Square at 8:30pm. Why not make a night of it by enjoying a meal in town and then watching the lights light up for Melbourne. If you won't be there, the display will be on for the next 3 days and this will promote Rotary to all Melbournites and seen by the rest of the world.

Have a great week everyone and see you on Monday night at Cell Care at Heatherton and followed by sangers and drinks at Melbourne Golf Academy. I'll be bringing my clubs - that's for sure.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Update on Presidents Meeting

Hello everyone

Last night I attended the Rotary Presidents Meeting and I'd like to update you on the various events and initiatives that may be of interest to you.

District Conference

If you haven't already registered, then please consider registering soon as the countdown is on until the weekend of 21 and 22 April for the District Conference. Register here: http://www.9810conference.org.au/

The question was asked if partners can come along just to the Saturday night event if they haven't paid for full registration. Although guests cannot come only to the Saturday night event, DG Juliet has a small budget available and if you put in a case for your partner to attend, then this will be considered. So please email her directly with your request.

The event promises to be wonderful and a bit different to other years and there is a surprise for us all on Saturday night.

Parking is available at Etihad stadium which is directly opposite the venue on the water, at $10 per day.

Peter Murie has asked that if you have a club project to promote that you provide to him slides/photos and some copy of your event so that the 'news reels' can be made and played during the event on loop. Unfortunately, due to limited space, there will not be club project displays in a House of Friendship like we have other years.

Rotary Birthday - Global Illumination Event - for your diaries Thursday 27 Feb

At 8:30pm at Federation Square, there will be a Rotary End Polio Illumination 'switching on' ceremony where the Rotary symbol and End Polio Now will be in bright lights at Fed Square for the world to see. It will be an opportunity for Rotarians from all Districts to gather and celebrate Rotary's birthday and be part of a once-in-a-Rotary lifetime opportunity to be part of the illumination of the city. The photo taken on this night will go along with the other photos of the Rotary symbol displayed in London, and other cities - the images we know so well.

This is an opportunity to gather your friends, family and fellow Rotarians to come along to the city and be involved in this special night! The images will stay up for 3 days until 27 February so Melbournians can get the full appreciation of the message.

I'm planning to have dinner at the Young and Jackson's after work and then heading off to see the lights turn on in the city!

Dick Garner has asked for all club 's support to get as many people to this event!

Books for Babies

Jo Beilby talked about the literacy project available to all clubs. This is a full kit where this book, "Ten Little Toes and Ten Little Fingers" will be given to all mums who give birth on 12 March with a dedication from Rotary. It is an opportunity to work with your local hospital to provide this book to all mums on this day and spread the word of Rotary.

New Clubs in The Pipeline

(1) There is a new club starting at Swinburne University with the assistance of RC Wantirna and more information will be made available soon.

(2) Philip talked about a new District e-Club in formation called "Rotary eClub of Greater Melbourne" which will be an opportunity for those people who don't have time for meetings to attend meetings electronically and online. Once the website is up and running, there will be a promotion to the database of prospective members, previous members and the wider Rotary family to inspire interest. More information will come out soon but the aim is to have this up and ready on 30 June 2012.

(3) You may not know that our District has an Interact Club (14-18 Year olds) and it is the largest club in the District with over 70 members.

Group Study Exchange

There will be an outgoing team dinner to farewell the Aussies going to Texas hosted by the RC Doncaster on 21 March. More details will be out soon but it would be great if we had representation from our club to support Andrew Boast and wish him well. The outgoing team will be leaving Melbourne on 23 March.

The incoming GSE Texan team will be here on 25 March and the RC Mordialloc will be holding a 'welcome dinner' at the Dingley International on Tuesday 27 March. We will not be having a meeting on the Monday 26 and instead, will use the Cluster dinner as an opportunity to meet and enjoy the presentation at the Dingley for those people who are interested. More details to follow but please put Tues 25 March in your diaries.

New Members

There will be a new member's night at the Box Hill Golf Course on Thursday 1 March at 6:00-8:00pm

President Elect Training Sessions (PETS)

Given that I'll be President again in the new year, I'll be attending PETS on Sunday 4 March as a participant but also a presenter. DGE Brian has asked me to present the idea of the Business Networking Concept to the group to be rolled out on a wider scale across the clubs if they like.

There is opportunity for President Nominees to attend too but as we haven't planned down this far as to who will take over in 2013-2014...I'll leave that open. The choice is totally yours - do you want to act as President for the club for a year! It's a great job - with lots of support - and wonderful opportunities. If you haven't already considered it but you'd like to - then please, let me know because you can come with me to PETS!! Yay!!

DG Nominee Applications now Open

If you have loftier aspirations than just President, then how about DGN? Applications now open for DGN AND/OR the selection committee. More information in Newsletters soon or on the website.

District Governor Changeover Dinner Night

Will be on at the Box Hill Town Hall on Saturday 30 June 2012 if you're interested.

Business Networking Events

Just thought I'd add this in myself - it wasn't mentioned last night but you may or may not have seen the article in the American Rotarian magazine about how RC Rochester NY is using business events to drive membership. The article is called 'Open for Business' and here it is:
http://www.rotary.org/en/MediaAndNews/TheRotarian/Pages/Business1201.aspx

I have contacted the RC Rochester to ask to speak to someone via Skype for an opportunity to share the knowledge, tools and ideas of what we could do to reconnect with our own business community and I'll let you know how that goes.

In the meantime, I have re-created District toolkit of tools and templates that should any club in our district (or wider) ask for how to plan for such events, will be made available. I have been asked by DGE Brian to be in the District role next year for Business Networking so if you have other ideas of how this concept can grow then please let me know.

Other News

Other than that, work has advised me that the upcoming months will be going to be hectic as the project starts gaining momentum and initiatives implemented. I have been warned that there will be many after hours work and weekend work to get through the workload. I'm anticipating that there will be Monday nights where I simply will not be available to attend Rotary and I ask your support in these cases. The business events are still my priority and I'm in the process of filling in one more speaker and a vocational visit to the ICU at Monash Hospital for our events in July.

However, there are other factors such as identifying alternative venues (we have already created the short list of places with the option of also 'staying at SOC' to be included if we can sway the management to keep us on if we join as SOC members to cover the cost of the big room). Standby for more information.

Other than that, RYLA is going to be asking for applicants soon and I'd ask that you consider applicants for that. The GSE Malaysia applications will also soon be open and Jayde (our guest speaker from Monash Health) has expressed an interest to join GSE and join Rotary afterwards and I'd be encouraging her to do the program first.

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday night for our Connecting Business with Community Business Networking Event!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Helen's Headlines - Monday 6 February 2011

How to Engage Your Customers Using Social Media was our first presentation for our Connecting Business with Community Networking Events for the month of February. Presented by online marketer Priya Chandra, we saw the majority of the audience were visitors over Rotarians last night which goes to show the importance of this hot topic.

You may have seen the article in the 'Rotarian' this month called, "Open for Business" and it mentions the Rotary Club of Rochester who does similar events to attract new members with an old tradition. They have a motto at the club, "It's great to do business with a Rotarian" and have various events such as business networking events, B2B expos, "Ask an Expert" column in their newsletter about 5 things about a Rotarian's area of expertise; and a 'Business Before Hours' where they have a get-together at a Rotarian's place of business before work for a tour and preentation of their facility; as well as a business directory. They say, "we encourage our members to bring guests to all our evenings to promote the Rotary Club of Rochester and to let people know that along with our community service work, we are also helping people expand their business." I'm going to get into contact with RC Rochester to find out more about how to further tweak our events to make them that more attractive to business.

I had a call from our Member's office Elizabeth Miller to advise us that she will be attending one of our events so standby! It was lovely to see our GSE participant Andrew Boast who is getting ready for his trip to Dallas and to introduce him to Jayde Lovell, our guest speaker from last Monday night who has expressed an interest to apply for the Malaysia GSE this year. Jayde and I are in progress with organising the vocational tour for the Business Events in July which will be to the Monash ICU - a fascinating behind the scenes tour and presentation of this area; and having a speaker on another night talk about how businesses have contributed to community through charities - and some techniques on how they can work with not-for-profits to promote, sponsor and support charitable events and activities. July Business Networking Events are promising to be just as interesting as the ones we've had already and our database of local business contacts are now steadily growing.

Last night, we had some repeat visitors from last November's events but also some new faces and having a chance to speak to our visitors, they relayed that they got som tips, techniques and hints about what they could do for their own business. One person mentioned that what they thought they could use for their business, they changed their mind simply because it wouldn't have been the right tool.

Our second speaker Snigdha Gurrala, our sponsored NYSF participants charmed them. It was a perfect close to an evening where she explained the benefits and the value that the NYSF held for her. She openly explained her passion for biomedical sciences and you could see how excited she was to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I hope to see Snigdha again, even as a future Rotaractor or Rotarian simply because she has seen the opportunities and learned more about Rotary. At our table, she was also giving us information on how the NYSF was using social media to keep in contact with other participants of NYSF long after the event as a way of still re-inspiring their passion in science and friendship.

So thank you to everyone who has helped in this evening to Philip and Jason for walking around to businesses to promote the events and give out flyers; to Ian who set up the room last night; and to Graeme for dealing with the crowds at the doors. Thanks to Philip again for chairing and creating the Member Packs and to Susan for the certificates.

Next week we have Laurence Guttledge (it was going to be Paul Whelan however he has another job now) a representative from VECCI to talk about the impact of the carbon tax to businesses. Although the turnout will be smaller than last night, I do ask that you actively promote this event to your friends and colleagues.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Helen's Headlines - Monday 29th January 2011

Apologies for a belated post due to pressing demands at my new work which have started! After spending a few weeks learning the ropes at the new place of work, meeting new people and the teams and being inducted, the time has come to actually do some work. I'm finding that I've been spending longer hours at work and not been able to access personal emails to attend to Rotary simply because I can't squeeze them into the day. It doesn't help having this hot weather and the last thing I want to do when I get home at 6pm sometimes 7pm, to check my emails!

But not to worry, we will get there!

We had a wonderful speaker last Monday night. Jayde Lovell from the Monash Health Foundation gave us a rundown of the fundraising her organisation co-ordinates to ensure that funding is provided to the various community centres in our area. Speaking to Jayde on the night, she told me of her fascinating work in Indonesia for the last four years and how she is looking for a community service club to join. She speaks fluent Indonesian and Malay and I thought that she would be a worthy applicant for the GSE going to Malaysia in 2013. She expressed an interest in GSE and already, I contacted the GSE committee for information and Jayde advised that she will be submitting her application for GSE Malaysia this year.

Jayde will also be joining us at all our business events and will be coming along to meet the GSE Team from Texas at our Cluster meeting in late March. Please make her feel welcome to all our meetings.

The business events are now finalised. All information has been sent out to those people who will be taking part - either as guest presenter or assistant on the night with set up, chair or door person. Thanks to those people who make sure these events run smoothly in the background. Numbers to date is that we have 16 new visitors registered on the registration site but we are expecting drop ins for the first event where Priya Chandra will look at how Businesses Engage Customers Using Social Media. She will be using Bill's business as a case study on what can be done, so there's going to be some practical applications that will be of interest to anyone in business.

Also in progress are searching for alternate venues. Myself and Philip went out and saw La Cassatta Restaurant last Tuesday night and spoke to them about our requirements; similarly, he and Graeme also spoke and saw the venue out at the Sandbelt Hotel. We will be providing recommendations to Board in due course but watch this space.

I wish you all a great weekend and see you on Monday at our Connecting Business with Community networking events!