By Stacy Lee
Assistant Editor, Features
The Rotary District 5300 Vision Plan team is encouraging local Rotary Clubs to plan for the future.
Vision Chair Mary Ann Lutz visited the Rotary Club of San Marino on Sept. 15 along with team members, Gary Boyer and Kari Anderson, to speak about the 5-Year Vision Plan process.
“We’re here to talk to you today about vision planning for your Rotary Club,” Lutz said last Thursday.
She said she and her team would like to help San Marino create a flexible plan.
“We have had a history in Rotary of new presidents who come in and on the first day say, ‘I’m going to change everything. I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that,’” Lutz said.
She said sometimes the Rotary Club, as a unit, doesn’t want to make all of the changes that the new president wants.
“Then next year somebody else comes along and they have a completely different perspective,” Lutz said. “What Vision Training does is it pulls all of you together as one unit, where you will discuss what you want to do in your club for your community for your legacy as a total club. Then the president’s job is to guide you for the next four or five years with the goals that you have laid out as a club.”
She urged Rotarians to complete the planning, and quoted baseball icon Yogi Berra by saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to end up someplace else.”
Lutz, Boyer and Anderson outlined a step-by-step process for Rotarians.
The first step was the presentation made by the District Vision Team on Sept. 15.
“We’re going to identify some ideas and present the process that we’re going to go through as you get ready for the Vision Plan,” Boyer said. “For Step 2, you’re going to be taking an online survey.”
A link to an online survey about Rotary was emailed to all Rotarians. Those who aren’t computer literate will be assisted in filling out the survey online at a future San Marino Rotary meeting.
“What you’re going to do with the survey is evaluate your club,” Boyer said. “You might be surprised at some of the results of that evaluation. Through the survey, there’s a series of questions.”
The third step is the Vision Planning Workshop, which for San Marino Rotary is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 13 from 5-8 p.m. at San Marino Community Church’s Fellowship Hall. It will have the group examine the responses to those survey questions and formulate new ideas for the future. At least 50 percent of the club’s members have to respond to the survey in order to move forward to the workshop, Boyer said.
He identified the last step as the follow-through of the plans in the next one to five years. He pointed out that goals might change over a period of time depending on the club’s members.
San Marino Rotary Club’s Vision Keeper, who will be Rob Feidler, is going to help the club keeps it vision into the future.
“Your vision keeper is going to work with your board of directors and your assistant governor for the next five years, just checking in with everybody about your long-range goals,” Anderson said. “What you think you might want to do today maybe three years from now, it steers a little to the left or a little to the right.”
She said Rotary Clubs that have invested time in the 5-Year Vision Process have been very successful.