Rotary Networking Plus
Denis Boyd, our past District Governor, spoke about a new initiative to return (to some degree at least) to the roots of Rotary. We have seen a shift from a very strong emphasis on business networking (in the early days of Rotary), to a shift away from business networking- to the point where some clubs have fined members for talking business at a meeting! The new theme is “Rotary is open for business”.
To help members who want to identify and connect with businesses that are run by Rotarians, a new web site – www.rotarynetworkingplus.com – has been established, with seed funding from District 5050. The underlying theme is that doing business with Rotarians should mean doing business with business people who are ethical and can be trusted. Denis gave a demonstration of the web site, which is up and running now. There is no charge for registering a business on the website. There are now 152 listings – target is 400-500. While District 5050 has provided funding so far (about $6000 to date), the long term plan is for the website to be self – financing.
Denis’ presentation was well received – those present expressed generally positive reactions to the initiative.