Governor Melford Clarke

“INSPIRE TO COMMIT, SERVE and GROW”

Wel­come to a new Kiwa­nis Year. The admin­is­tra­tive Year 2018–2019 promis­es to be excit­ing and full of fun. Our efforts will be cen­tered around you, the mem­bers of this great East­ern Cana­da and Caribbean Dis­trict.  We will be inspir­ing you to com­mit, serve and grow your club, divi­sion and dis­trict with the ulti­mate goal of mov­ing Kiwa­nis from a Good orga­ni­za­tion to a Great Orga­ni­za­tion.

My first mes­sage to you is about our Theme: “Inspire to Com­mit, Serve and Grow”.

You are a Kiwan­ian because you were invit­ed to our orga­ni­za­tion by some­one who felt you could add val­ue to what we were cur­rent­ly doing. That was per­haps a year, five years or thir­ty-plus years ago.

Let us exam­ine our­selves. Are we sat­is­fied with the orga­ni­za­tion as it is? Does Kiwa­nis still meet our expec­ta­tions? The record shows that our mem­ber­ship is declin­ing. How do these sta­tis­tics affect our orga­ni­za­tion, clubs and com­mu­ni­ties? Why do our mem­bers leave? The answers to all these ques­tions are root­ed in our desire to be inspired to do more and assist our fel­low Kiwa­ni­ans to grow per­son­al­ly.

As lead­ers, we have one pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty that if prop­er­ly exe­cut­ed, can shut the back­doors of our clubs and increase com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

One def­i­n­i­tion of the word inspire is “to fill some­one with the urge or abil­i­ty to do or feel some­thing” (oxforddictionaries.com). I would like all of you divi­sion­al and dis­trict lead­ers to ask your­selves… “What can I do to fill Kiwa­ni­ans with the urge to serve in Kiwa­nis?  How can I INSPIRE Kiwa­ni­ans to Com­mit, Serve and Grow?”

As lead­ers, we some­times get lost in the doing and fall short in inspir­ing oth­ers to do. Lead­er­ship is not about a des­ig­na­tion, it is about influ­ence, inspi­ra­tion and impact.

INFLUENCE- Spread­ing the pas­sion you have for Kiwa­nis

INSPIRE- Fill­ing Kiwa­ni­ans with the urge to serve

IMPACT- Get­ting pos­i­tive results

How do we put this into action?… WE PREPARE AND MOTIVATE!

We need to be com­mit­ted to the objects and pur­pose of Kiwa­nis, which will in-turn moti­vate us to serve the chil­dren of the world.  This moti­va­tion and com­mit­ment would then move us to seek the assis­tance of fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues.

While this would result in addi­tion­al ser­vice hours with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, the greater goal is that, it inspires us to lead those who want to be a part of us and our pur­pose-dri­ven atti­tude to the orga­ni­za­tion.   This will lead to an over­all growth of the orga­ni­za­tion. Like in all busi­ness, mon­ey is need­ed to ser­vice the projects.

We must be able to work this theme “INSPIRE TO COMMIT, SERVE and GROW”to help meet our expec­ta­tions. When choos­ing a project, club mem­bers must be com­mit­ted to ensure its suc­cess.  Oth­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty will see what we are doing and want to be a part of the activ­i­ty. Those see­ing and want­i­ng, is the trig­ger for you to inspire them to serve.  Even­tu­al­ly you will invite them to your meet­ing.  One new mem­ber is a plus growth for the orga­ni­za­tion. The domi­no effect is that we now have one more hand to do ser­vice. One more mem­ber to con­tribute to the finan­cial pot, which would help at least four more needy per­sons or assist with the chil­dren we are man­dat­ed to help.  We can apply the con­cept of the Fly­wheel in Jim Collin’s book “Good to Great and the Social sec­tors: A mono­graph to accom­pa­ny Good to Great”. We keep doing what we are doing until we accom­plish our goal. Once the wheel begins to spin the first time, the sec­ond time around is less effort. As the momen­tum builds up, we bring in the first mem­ber, the first new club or that new sig­na­ture project.

I encour­age you to inspire oth­ers to com­mit to Kiwa­nis, serve to achieve our objec­tives and grow our Dis­trict.  This is my goal for 2018–2019. Wish­ing each of you a healthy and suc­cess­ful year.

#Kid­sNeed­sKi­wa­nis,  #Inspire­to­Com­mit­Serve­Grow