The new Rotarians
With membership dwindling and stark warnings about the need for change, is there a future for the Rotary Club? Maurice Weaver thinks he might have seen it. Portrait by Paul Stuart
When three friends, Miranda, Claire and Steve, found themselves at a loose end on weekday nights they decided, as thirtysomethings are prone to do, to go clubbing. But it wasn’t the hip-hop and alcopop scene they had in mind.
The threesome from Northamptonshire, looking beyond the traditional culture of young adulthood, took a firm grip on their sense of social responsibility and founded a Rotary Club of their own.
As UK Rotarians step up a campaign to increase regional membership, the youthful Rotary Club of Rushden Higham, now over 20 strong and growing, is a glimmer of hope for a service organisation which has been wallowing in predictions of its own demise.
You know about Rotary, of course. The image is of well-meaning middle-aged chaps in suits (if they are still working) or blazers (if they’re not) tucking into meat and two veg while arranging a fête or jazz night and discussing how to pass on the proceeds to good causes.
Founded in Chicago 104 years ago and exported to Britain early in the last century, Rotary may have 1.3 million members worldwide, with clubs booming in Asia, Africa and other parts of the developing world, but here it has lost its youth allure and has yet to find a solution to its problems.
There are 1,850 clubs in the RIBI (Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland), with some 55,000 members. They are small-town businessmen, solicitors, office managers – a cross-section of non-sectarian, non-political Middle England. Recruitment is traditionally by invitation.
Five per cent of RIBI members are women; a men-only rule applied until two decades ago when an American legal challenge brought belated, rather grudging change. In Britain, female professionals have been slow to sign up – worrying in itself and more so as 85 per cent of membership overall is now aged 55-plus.
Worthy and proud as Rotary undoubtedly is, it is hardly cool and RIBI has been stunned by a warning from David Bryant, its 49-year-old head of marketing, that unless decisive action is taken – and taken quickly – the outlook is decidedly bleak.
Bryant, a former advertising executive, speaks bluntly of a “demographic time-bomb” as the years take their toll and younger people shun the movement. Promoting a new recruitment programme, he exhorts: “Unless we act to reverse this trend now, RIBI will very probably not survive beyond 2025, if it lasts that long.”
David Fowler, 66, the new RIBI president, says: “We live in a world of change. I’m sure young people still want opportunities for fellowship and are no less interested in helping others. We just need to find a way to reach out to them. It’s a terrific challenge.”
Against such a background it is not difficult to understand why the emergence of lively new clubs such as the branch in the twin Midland market towns of Rushden and Higham Ferrers is viewed by Rotary’s leadership as so significant.
The club’s three founders, Miranda Barley, Claire Mercer and Steve Wilkins, have demonstrated that it is possible to drive a wedge through Rotary’s time-hardened façade of middle-aged male dominance, and in doing so they have provided the organisation with a banner to rally behind.
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