Meeting Minutes - March 28th, 2011

Tonight's meeting was long, which means a pretty long feedback section after the meeting minutes.

In a nutshell:

- We're doing an incredible amount of stuff, and it's all coming together.

- We need to work on our member development, recruitment, and retention to make sure that we don't burn ourselves out and can still have fun putting Service Above Self!

§1 Meeting Minutes

8:00 Networking

8:21 Introduction by Mehdi, Club Services Director

8:22 Guest & Member Introductions

8:22- Bilal; the District Rotaract Representative is visiting to get to know Rotaract Jumeirah.

He attended Rotaract Dubai in 2007, lives just north of Tripoli in Lebanon.

8:24- Rhoda; guest, works in Organizational Development for Jumeirah Group; father is from Abu Dhabi, mother is from Manchester. Had never heard of Rotaract before Josh invited her.

8:24 - Matthew, from France, works in the Oil & Gas industry.

8:25 - Josh, from the U.S., works in the environmental construction startup industry.

8:26 - Habib, French Tunisian, works in Finance.

8:27 - Varun, a founding member of Rotaract Jumeirah, is current Club Treasurer

8:27 - Mehdi, Tunisian, Club Services Director

8:28 - Phone call with Lisa for update on Caribbean night: we need items

8:29 - Intro to how we are leading meetings, where different Rotaractors lead each week. Consensus is that it is working well so far and that it's encouraging; each Rotaractor has their own unique style to bring to the table.

8:30 Agenda

- Member Profile Series

- Intranet & Social Media

- Projects / Events in Calendar

8:30 Member Profile Series:

8:30 - Faica; from Pakistan, Pinned today; What she does; has been in Dubai 1.5 years, was in Private Equity before that. Was involved with a charity that worked with mentally & physically handicapped children (played lots of soccer!). Will miss the Rotaract Dubai event that's on this wednesday in order to watch the Pakistan - India cricket world cup semifinal. What she'd like to do: something in management. Who she'd like to meet: people in the industry she wants to go into.

8:34 - Matthew; from Fance, Rotaract Jumeirah member; What he does: Has been in Dubai since June 2010 working on the extension of a plant for Total Oil. Was supposed to go to Saudi, but the project has been delayed. What he would like to do: Would like to find a job in the oil industry to stay in Dubai - our great city:) Who he'd like to meet: can't really think of anybody right now.

8:37 Josh; from the USA, Pinned today; What he does: Has worked with NGOs and moved into Business Development, now works with a startup company where he does almost everything: HR, Web Development, Business Strategy, Market Research, ICT, and so on. What he'd like to do: just got rejected by the Yale School of Management for their Fall 2011 intake, but has an offer from Claremont School of Psychology for their M.A. in Positive Organizational Psychology & Evaluation. Wants to lead organizations in innovating to create jobs, and use organizational psychology to make organizations where people can plug in and out seamlessly. Who he'd like to meet: Abdul Baset Al Janahi, CEO of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for SME Development, which is a great resource for startups in the UAE.

8:39 Intranet & Social Media

- Our intranet is found at: [redacted]

8:41 - Directory; we have 13 full-fledged members.

8:42 - Blog; we have updates starting to come in.

8:43 - Facebook Page; Marketing. Connected to Twitter, to the Blog.

3 Weeks ago, Sevan didn't have a facebook profile; now she's a person who updates blogs:)

8:45 - Facebook Wall: you can connect as the page itself if you are Admin, so posts come from "Rotaract Jumeirah" rather than individuals.

8:46 - Twitter; connected to Facebook, connected to the blog.

8:47 - View Website

8:50 - Member Profiles; Shall we do that via Facebook? Perhaps we can do it in the "Pictures" section - or on LinkedIn. Feel free to put your ideas for this into the comments section!

8:53 - Projects & Events in the Calendar:

When we go to [redacted], we have a calendar that we should put all our events in. Let's go through the events that are on right now:

8:54 Rotaract Dubai event on Wednesday March 30th, 8p-9:30p;

They will talk about acquiring perspective on business concepts, project management, business analysis, management functions, business processes, terminology and abbreviations; and interpreting case studies. This is a big event, with a lot of Rotary support, and they would like to have someone representing Rotaract Jumeirah there. See Invite below (2).

8:58 - Paintball this Saturday

We would plan for it to be at 11am. You can RSVP via email, and I'll probably also make it a Facebook event as soon as I get login info.

Location - http://paintballuae.com/location.htm

Prices - http://paintballuae.com/prices.htm

Contact: Josh.Penman@rotaractjumeirah.org +971 55 907 3522

8:59 - Extraordinary Entrepreneurial Mind Conference Update

We have a venue confirmed! Palace Hotel in down-town Dubai: an absolutely brilliant, top-class establishment, and they have are giving us the whole thing, including food, for free. Now we have the basis to line up some awesome speakers and put on an event worthy of the venue and the topic: the future of the UAE lies in entrepreneurship.

Aside: The government push towards entrepreneurship in Abu Dhabi and Dubai is awesome, and I am incredibly impressed with the resources they have available - I put together the business plan for my own company based on a template I got from www.sme.ae, and there is so much more there: from regulatory tips to profiles. One thing I would like to see is a lot more partnership between Emirati and expat entrepreneurs: the future exists in partnership.

9:11 - Caribean Night Update

We need silent auction items and raffle gifts. Big-ticket items like laptops will be auctioned. Smaller ones like spa tickets will go in the raffle.

9:13 - Fashion Show Update

Venue Confirmed; Media 1

Sponsors: Mall of the Emirates is on Board, they're giving social media support; visit their Facebook page here.

Saatchi & Saatchi is onboard, as is their PR agency,

Canon is sponsoring us, giving cameras and possibly printers as giveaways. Because of the earthquake in Japan, they're not sure how much they'll be able to give, but they'll be able to give something.

- We need to coordinate Saatchi & Saatchi PR with Mall of the Emirates PR and 7 Days to make sure the PR for the Fashion show goes smoothly.

9:18 - We have 3 makeup artists,

We need 12 models;

2 models are confirmed.

6 more models are promised.

That means we still need 4 catwalk models.

9:19 - Designers

We have 1 designer

We need 4 more.

We have Approval from Rotary, we have 7 Days and Timeout Dubai on board for promotion.

We need 6 weeks of ticket sales & PR to make the event a success: that means we need to start in two weeks.

9:22 - Licensing for Senses - This effects all of the current & scheduled charity events;

We have to figure out the legal stuff surrounding charity functions in the UAE and where Senses fits into all that.

9:26 - Project Management

With the growing complexity of Rotaract Jumeirah Projects, we should put together some professional development on Project Management. Mehdi will put together the stuff for this.

9:27 - Events NOT in the Calendar

9:28 - Pay it Forward was deadlined for Feb; right now it's under consideration by Rotary Jumeirah, and Akshay is modifying the proposal so that it can go anywhere (not just the Jumeirah group like it is set up right now). He will send that tomorrow and then we'll have to hit the streets with the promotional materials once the licensing / permit details for Senses as a charity are sorted out.

9:29 - Charity Walk needs to happen soon! Last year we had 50-60 people, it's supposed to be a yearly event, and our year ends in June. What happens is we do a Saturday morning walk at Saffa Park. Instead of 2 dh., entrance for the walk is 50Dh. and the proceeds go to charity. Since we've done it before, all we need is a champion to move forward with the project.

9:33 Rotaract District Team

Bilal put on a great presentation, starting out by asking us what we thought the Rotaract District team would do. We said, "Advise, Connect, Coordinate, share success stories, best practices, guidelines, and tips." - and he said: "In concept, none of this!" In practice, yes, we do pretty much all of those things. But in concept, our sole goal is to help clubs advance the objects of Rotary.

There are several avenues under which Rotary is advanced, and, so far, Rotaract only has one of them: Club Services. In Rotary, there is also a PR committee and a Member Development committee. We want to popularize the creation of those committees in Rotaract clubs in our district.

9:39 - We're also working on PR at a district level, with a website; social media; traditional media; small booklets to give out at cafés in Jordan & other places, etc.

9:42 - We are a community of young professionals; not just a charity. We're about connecting and membership development: Rotaract clubs should have a membership development & retention plan.

9:45 - Final thing: with many of these small countries, we want to have big events. Dubai: we haven't heard much about what you're doing. Next year we want to have the media convention of the District in Dubai.

9:48 - There are 250 registered members of Rotary Dubai; in India, some Rotaract clubs have 250 members; a city like Dubai can easily handle 30-40 members. If you get a group that size of quality people different backgrounds, you've got an incredibly useful community that can help support each Rotary's goals.

Here are Rotary's goals:

What would it take to change the world? Rotary International is the world's first service club organization, with more than 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide. Rotary club members are volunteers who work locally, regionally, and internationally to combat hunger, improve health and sanitation, provide education and job training, promote peace, and eradicate polio under the motto Service Above Self.

Joining Rotary: The benefits of being a Rotarian include serving the community, networking and friendship, and promoting ethics and leadership skills. Learn More

Josh's Note: I started to think about the benefits of being a Rotaractarian, and I came up with the following three: 1) Camaraderie, 2) Professional Development, and 3) Service. I want to see some measurable impact in those areas, and I'm already seeing it: I had a great time go-karting with Rotaractors last saturday, we're doing a ton of service projects, and we've done a ton of professional development.

9:51 Pin New Members

9:58 End.

§2 Feedback

- This was a monster meeting; everything was going relatively well until we got to the Entrepreneurial Mind Update, I highlighted all the sections that I felt could have been shorter in red.

- If we can keep our project updates to just updating and questions or feedback that take no longer than a minute to answer, I think our meetings can be more engaging.

- We could aim for our meetings to last 45 minutes or less, and an hour max, with any other work done in breakout groups.

- Ideas for further development: skills assessments for members to put them in the right places in addition to project management training.

We're on the right track and we've got some incredibly talented people in the club that have just the skill-set we need to overcome all of the obstacles we face. The only thing in our way is the rest of our lives; jobs, social life, and sleep. . . and with the improvements we're planning, we can streamline what we do to the point where Rotaract doesn't conflict with those things at all.