The Rotary
Associates are a group of first year University Students who enrol in a
community programme at University and gain credits towards their degree for
helping on Rotary programmes.
This program resulted from a 2011 Visioning exercise within Papanui
Rotary that recognised the club was aging and need to revitalise by including a
much younger age group. However there was
a problem in that the club had no direct appeal or access to young people, and
youth in general were motivated to join causes not clubs.
Fortunately at the time they had an Ambassadorial Scholar attached to the club who willingly worked
with the club to devise a program
that they felt would meet both the needs and expectations of
young people and provide the club with the results that they were
seeking. Confidence in initiating the program came from the fact that it
had been clearly demonstrated after the Christchurch earthquakes that there was
a desire to contribute to the community by young people, and the example of
this was the well documented outstanding performance of the Christchurch
Student Volunteer Army.
The project
was named the Rotary Associates Program.
The first
candidates were drawn from the Emerging Leaders’ Program at the university, and
the test target was to be the Papanui greater community.
The concept
was as follows:
1) The pilot program initially would select only four
students from the university’s Emerging Leaders’ Program
2) They would commit to the program for the university year
3) They would attend a full Rotary meeting as our guests at
least once every term minimum
4) During the year, they each would contribute a minimum
of 20+ hours of community work under the direction and banner of the club
5) During the year, each candidate would have a fireside
meeting (an informal meal) at the home of a senior Rotarian to discuss the
principals of Rotary, our community, and their views on the development and
effectiveness of the program
6) At the end of the period, each candidate would address a
full Rotary meeting, and give a full presentation of their involvement and
experiences during their association with Rotary at work
In return, the
club supported the candidates whenever possible, and this included:
1) Discussions and general mentoring
2) The club sent two candidates to the Aspiring Leaders’
Forum which is held annually in Wellington
3) The club nominated two students to the Rotary Youth
Leadership Award in January
4) Each candidate was formally presented at a Rotary meeting
with a certificate jointly signed by the current university coordinator
and the club President to recognise their contribution and achievement
The program
has been great fun and terrifically successful and the original four candidates
were used as coordinators and mentors for the subsequent years’ program. It has proved to be a great partnership with
approximately 20 students currently in
the program and divided up amongst the Papanui and Bishopdale-Burnside clubs
who mentor the students and keep contact with them by inviting them to meetings,
community projects and any suitable Rotary functions. Some meetings have been
changed to suit the students’ needs thereby becoming more relevant to younger
people and they are encouraged to share their ideas with the clubs by running a
meeting, providing some speakers.
Club members
in particular have enjoyed working and socialising with the Associates, both at
the club and in the community. There have been a wide variety of projects
undertaken by the Associates with the most recent being the clean up by Rotary
and Associates members of the Papanui rail corridor.
It is
intended to expand the program and present it to the wider Rotary community as
a successful working scheme that they can individually adopt and benefit from.
Hopefully, sometime in the future, the Associates will become active Rotarians
and New Zealand's future leaders.
