All but one of the 40 active clubs in District 5610 have received the official Governor's visit.  I am also excited to visit, in the near future, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Rotaract Club.  The club visits exceeded my expectations.  It was truly enjoyable visiting each club and learning what the clubs are doing to serve their communities and contribute to the greater Rotary community.  I am humbled by the extraordinary leadership of the clubs and have a renewed appreciation of Rotary on the ground in District 5610.

During my visits, I took a survey of the members present and offered them an opportunity to identify themselves as veteran Rotarians, novice Rotarians, or somewhere in-between.  They were then asked to grade their club as vibrant, thriving, surviving, or struggling and why.  Rotarians also got the opportunity to leave a message for club leadership and district leadership.  Each club president got the original surveys from their club and a summary of all responses.  The one club with a visit pending was surveyed online, so the survey represents the entire district.  It is not a scientific survey, but the results are valuable nonetheless.

We collected 464 completed surveys which is 27% of our entire district membership of 1750.  That is an extremely good rate of return.  Veterans accounted for 58% of the responses, 14% were from novices, and 28% fell somewhere in-between.  29% of respondents rated their club vibrant, 37% rated it thriving, 32% rated it surviving, and the remainder of less than 2% said their club was struggling.  One conclusion that may be drawn from the data is that club members are generally happy with their club and recognize that there is room for improvement.

As interesting as the numbers are, the best information from the survey came from the written comments.  Overwhelmingly, our members recognize that their club needs to recruit and retain new members...many called out younger members as the most sought after prospect.  The second most called out need was for basic Rotary information.  I have distributed the survey results to District 5610 leadership and we will be working on delivering what the members have cited as needs.  Stay tuned.

Finally, I would like to comment on the exceeding generosity and gratitude members expressed for their volunteer club and district leadership.  I was not expecting that and it was quite encouraging.  Thank you, District 5610 Rotarians for being Rotarians and making the world a better place in the many ways each of you contribute.

Warmly and kindly,

Ina Winter

DG 2019-2020