Membership &  Extension Officer Jim Smith Profile

Wow!! I’m really delighted, if not a little daunted, to be your National Membership & Extension Officer. I have some big shoes to step into. I wish Malcolm all the very best in his role as Vice-President and thank him for all the great work he’s done over the past few years on Membership.

This is going to be a busy year. As many of you will know we have been instructed by the membership to put forward new proposals on membership at the AGM in Scarborough in 2010. For those of you not aware the proposal put forward by Cheshunt and Penarth clubs shown below was passed at the Southport AGM in April.

“This meeting instructs the Membership Committee of the National Executive to formulate and put forward proposals to change the Association’s membership rules to allow constituent clubs to recruit like-minded men who would, in their opinion, benefit the Round Table family by their membership of their club and thus, the Association, as full voting members; the proposals to change the Association’s membership rules are to be formally presented by the National Executive and placed before the clubs at the Association’s AGM in 2010 for immediate implementation”

To enable us to prepare appropriate proposals we have started the year rolling with a snapshot survey of all clubs. If you haven’t seen the letter and survey it is available for download here. I really want to hear views from all clubs so if you or your club haven’t sent in a response please do so as soon as possible. My aim is to provide clubs with the results of the survey and some draft ideas on proposals to discuss at their meeting in November. President Richard has set an aim of all clubs discussing this important topic then so if it’s not already in your programme please put it in now.

I was delighted that my first official duty as Membership Officer was to attend the re-inauguration meeting of Royston 41 Club. The club, with the support of a number of current and recent past Tablers, has re-affiliated and they hosted an excellent night at a St. George’s Day celebration to mark the event. I was very pleased to be asked to induct 10 new members into the club. They have a very active outlook and their first priority is to give full support to their excellent and growing Round Table. Even more important, as I was told by one of their number and a recent past Chairman of Round Table, they now have 100% of Tablers who have left on the Age Rule over the past 5 years as members.

I was also pleased that we have another new club from Region 19 affiliated. Radlett Area 41 Club has been set up by a group of recent ex-Tablers specifically to support their own very active Round Table. We wish both clubs well.

Active Membership

Malcolm Lockey, my predecessor, has been talking about active membership for some time now. The question for many clubs is ‘What is Active membership?’ In my view ‘active’ means a combination of an active and varied programme, developing a profile in the local Community by means of Community Service or Fund Raising, encouraging Round Tablers to join and help to develop the club when they leave Table and supporting their Round Table where there is one. We must not forget though that the thing that differentiates us from other similar organisations is our passion for ‘Fun and Fellowship’. During the year we will try to define this a little more and I would like to hear from clubs who are ‘active’ as much as anything to help and encourage other clubs with their ideas. I would also like to hear from Tablers who have either recently left Table and not joined a 41 Club or who are looking for active involvement

The current position with membership, according to the stats we get from the CAS system, is that we have 837 clubs with 18,990 members. The difficulty quite often is that as membership of the Association is by club and not individual we have no idea how accurate this really is. Sometimes it is only when we chase up unpaid capitation that we find out that a club has decided to close, or its numbers have changed. It would help us enormously if the figures were more accurate and it would also support National’s other initiative of delivering magazines to all members directly if your club recorded all its members on the CAS system. If you don’t know how let your National Councillor know or speak to Sue Barnicoat at Marchesi House.

Have a great year in 41 Club and let me know your views on membership.

Jim Smith

Membership & Extension Officer
membership@41club.org