E-CLUB PROGRAM

PRESIDING TODAY IS: Diana Martinelli

Ding! We’re now in session.

Welcome all – Visitors, fellow Rotarians and guests alike to this E-Club program!

Remember the smiling pot. Donations to our E-Club help support our service projects.

We’d like to respectfully remind all visitors that if they would like to contribute the normal cost of a meal for your makeup meeting, we would be grateful. These funds go directly to support our varied service projects. You may make a contribution in the Donation box on the homepage or you my write a check to:  Rotary E-Club of District 7530 and mail it to Treasurer MSRE, 405 Blackberry Ridge Dr., Morgantown, WV 26508.

 

Four-Way Test

At the beginning of each meeting we remind ourselves of the The Four-Way Test.  Therefore, please remember to ask yourself always . . .

Of the things we think, say or do:

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

 

Reflective Moments

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
--Benjamin Franklin
 
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
 
“A good plan implemented today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow.”
--George S. Patton
 
“Tell me what is your plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
--Mary Oliver

                             

 

A Light Moment 

“If you want God to laugh, tell Him your plans.”

--Woody Allen

 

 

Program:  

Strategic Planning for Rotary International, our E-Club and Your Own Life and Business

 

At the end of the Rotary year, June 30, we assessed our E-Club’s progress toward the strategic goals and objectives we finalized in January and highlighted our accomplishments in our annual report. Rotary International updated its strategic plan in June, and to start the new year, we’ve followed suit with an updated plan of our own.

 

The plan is still in draft form and will be discussed at our next executive board meeting Wednesday, August 29, at noon (via zoom). You’re invited to participate in that strategic planning call, or if you cannot, please provide me with any feedback or ideas via email, and I’ll share them on your behalf.

 

Below I’ve included food for thought about planning in your own life. The first is a TedTalk by futurist Ari Wallach (less than 15 minutes long), whose clients have included the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Ford Foundation and Pew Research Center, among many others. In his talk, he asks “what is your ‘longpath’?” and discusses the importance of transgenerational thinking to spur transformational change (which reminded me a lot of Rotary’s work!). The second is a very brief article from Forbes.com about planning for small businesses.

 

I hope you’ll find one or both of these pieces of interest and that you’ll leave a comment/reflection at the bottom of our page to share with other members and guests.

 

Photo credit: by Chadroc2 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53103649

 

 

The link to the TEDTalk may be found here: “Three ways to plan for the (very) long term.”

 

Five Steps to a Strategic Plan (from Forbes.com)

 

It’s hard to accomplish anything without a plan. Whether you’re coaching a football team, cooking Thanksgiving dinner, or running a small business, you need a strategic plan.

 

A strategic plan looks at all the things your small business could do and narrows it down to the things it is actually good at doing. A strategic plan also helps business leaders determine where to spend time, human capital, and money.

 

But, how should small businesses approach strategic planning? There are hundreds of business books dedicated to the topic. We’ve read most of them. We put the others on our bookshelf just for show.

 

Developing a strategic plan might seem like an overwhelming process, but if you break it down, it’s easy to tackle. Here’s our five-step approach:

 

1. Determine where you are. This is harder than it looks. Some people see themselves how they WANT to see themselves, not how they actually appear to others. Many small businesses get snared in this same trap.

 

For an accurate picture of where your business is, conduct external and internal audits to get a clear understanding of the marketplace, the competitive environment, and your organization’s competencies (your real—not perceived—competencies).

 

2. Identify what’s important. Focus on where you want to take your organization over time. This sets the direction of the enterprise over the long term and clearly defines the mission (markets, customers, products, etc.) and vision (conceptualization of what your organization’s future should or could be).

From this analysis, you can determine the priority issues—those issues so significant to the overall well-being of the enterprise that they require the full and immediate attention of the entire management team. The strategic plan should focus on these issues.

 

3. Define what you must achieve. Define the expected objectives that clearly state what your organization must achieve to address the priority issues.

 

4. Determine who is accountable. This is how you’re going to get to where you want to go. The strategies, action plans, and budgets are all steps in the process that effectively communicates how you will allocate time, human capital, and money to address the priority issues and achieve the defined objectives.

 

5. Review. Review. Review. It’s not over. It’s never over. To ensure the plan performs as designed, you must hold regularly scheduled formal reviews of the process and refine as necessary. We suggest at least once a quarter.

 

A strategic plan is a wonderful thing. It can help you take your small business to places you never thought possible. If you haven’t already done so, take the time to lay out a strategic plan now. It will help keep your small business on track and you focused on the future.

 

Thanks for attending our E-Club meeting! We hope it provided some food for thought and some ideas and inspiration of your own. Please remember to share them with us in the comments section below.