Continuing to do the same thing over and over expecting different results is a flawed strategy. Membership in Florida Kiwanis reached an all time high of 15,923 in 1983-84. In the next 21 years membership plunged to 10,584, a loss of 5,339 good men and women and 10,678 hands for service. In the six year period, 1993-94 to 1999-00 we lost 3,753 members an average of 625 a year. We have never recovered. And, we won’t as long as we continue to go about new member recruitment the same old way. In Florida we need to face the truth. What we have been doing in the past does not work. It doesn’t take a genius to see that loosing one-third of our membership while we continue to do the same thing over and over is insane.

We must reverse this dangerous trend or some day Kiwanis will become irrelevant in many, if not nearly all communities in Florida. I propose two things that are new and we can do right now, that will begin to get us back on the right track, First, we have begun something we refer to as Membership Revolution Training. Presently we have 42 trained instructors, from nearly every Division, that we are asking to come to your Club and train members how to identify, recruit and enlist new members. The thrust of this training is to show you how to make recruiting personal, as easy as telling others your Kiwanis moment. If your Club has not been contacted about this training please contact me at elee34@tampabay.rr.com. Much like CLE training we vision this to become an annual event. The second thing we are asking each Club to do is really easy and if ALL Clubs will make a concentrated effort to accomplish it, we will really be on our way. It is called “FOUR=ONE”. We are asking Clubs to split into teams of FOUR and have each team recruit and install ONE mew member between now and August 21, the first day of our annual District Convention. If each Club does this successfully we will have a net increase, after our typical 15% non renewals, of 1,177! FOUR = ONE.

The time for waiting until “they” do it must be over. Growth is every Kiwanians responsibility. Let me give you just one example why we need to grow Florida Kiwanis. While we lead the Kiwanis world in Chartered Service Leadership Programs there are over 3,100 Public Schools in Florida without any Kiwanis Sponsored Youth organization. Growth has been, is, and will remain, about SERVICE. Ask yourself this simple question. Do I care enough about Kiwanis, and the Club I belong to, to ask someone to help me change, for the better, the lives of the children who live in my community?

Please participate in the Membership Revolution training and FOUR = ONE. The lives of four million kids in Florida may depend on it.

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