My journey through the Membership of Rotaract Mora which drives the impossible towards possible
I as a Rotaractor started my journey by being a participant of Rotaract Mora’s Hand in Hand card selling campaign at the BMICH book exhibition with a little hope of lightening the dreams of cancer threatened little souls. While growing and getting exposure day by day I used to get involved with many Rotaractors and senior batchmates of our university. I was able to get to know more about Rotaract Mora and their signature projects while being a volunteer for a few months. Fortunately, within few months I became a content writer and with that, I got the opportunity to be a part of Rotaract Mora officials family as the Assistant Secretary for the year 2019/20. While working towards my passions, I was lucky enough to get involved with many projects by giving my guidance and support towards their successful implementation. In my second year of Rotaract, I was appointed as the Co-Director of Membership Development. And it was an exciting and quite challenging year for me as a part of the Board of Directors of the club. Club membership is the main asset that we are firstly and mostly proud of and they are the ones who drive all our signature projects to the next level.
During the Rotaract year 2020/21, our main focus areas as the Membership Development team were to maintain and regularly update the newly initiated member contributions tracking platform of the club, LinkR, and expand the member base of the club into the Faculties of Architecture, Business, and the newly-initiated Faculty of Medicine. The membership of Rotaract Club of University of Moratuwa comprised a majority from the Faculties of Engineering and IT. At the end of the year, with the support of the active general membership of the club, we were able to attract a substantial number of members from the Faculties of Architecture and Business. We were fortunate to approach the Medical Faculty newbies from Batch 20 through the Rota Spark program which was carried out for around three months. While the Membership Development Team retained the membership of the Engineering and IT faculties, we also focused on reaching the new batches of the Institute of Technology, University of Moratuwa (NDT) and thereby maintain an active membership from the Institute. While maintaining a diversified membership, we identified the quality and the productivity of the membership beyond the membership quantity. We were able to keep in touch with all the members with the newly initiated membership tracking platform, LinkR while recognizing the best performers and diversified avenue participating members with the aim of terminating inactive members. The Membership Development Team was able to keep track on all the project chairpersons and give equal opportunities to every member to engage with the avenues they were interested in. Statistically, more than 80% of the inducted club members of Rotaract year 2020/21 were able to grab the opportunity of being a chairperson. Last but not least adapting to the new normal, we redefined and redesigned the annual projects of our avenue — Rota Spark, Revelation 20.0, Induction ceremonies, and the Annual Awards Ceremony.
The project ‘Rota Spark’ was organized for the second time with the aim of opening doors for the new intake of the University of Moratuwa to join with the global Rotaract movement. The project consisted of four phases. All the newbies were grouped into eight houses under the theme of “Game of Thrones” and the whole project was carried out in a competitive mode. Phase 1 — the Orientation program, was a welcoming event for the newbies of Batch 20 of the University of Moratuwa and was successfully carried out with the participation of more than 250 participants from all five faculties, with the number of event registrants exceeding 500. Alongside the Orientation program, we organized a wallpaper designing competition as an individual competition and an introductory video development competition under a group mode with the aim of giving them an opportunity to upskill themselves and enhance their creativity.
Phase 2 - IGNITION was held as a two-day program with the aim of giving the newbies a proper introduction and awareness of the avenues and projects of Rotaract Mora. The first program was held exclusively for the newbies of the newly initiated Medical Faculty with the participation of more than 50 members. The second program was conducted for all the other four faculties with the participation of more than 180 members. In align with the IGNITION program, we organized an Editorial competition named ‘Rethink’ as an individual contest and we had 80+ submissions in both prose and poems categories. Also, a creative video development competition was held as a group contest with the aim of giving them an audience to showcase their aesthetic talents.
Phase 3 - the Open Week was a one-week program which was held from 15th March to 23rd March 2021 by arranging one-to-one informal meetings between newbies and the Board of Directors with the aim of giving the newbies the opportunity to express their thoughts regarding the Rotaract movement and get to know our directors. Throughout the week, we had around 50 participants daily. The Open Week was arranged in an avenue per day format with five one-hour slots occurring each day. Along with the Open Week program, a photography competition named ‘Rota Click’ was organized as an individual contest for which we received 100+ submissions.
The Closing Ceremony was the most awaited day of the project for all the newbies given that the team winning the ‘Iron Throne’ was to be announced on the day. It was held as an evening event and house Greyjoy won the throne. All the winners of all the competitions were rewarded with certificates.
Revelation 20.0 was held for the second time, separately from the Rota Spark project, with the aim of allowing the newbies to explore brand new project ideas and improvements to enhance the quality of ongoing projects by evaluating 13 signature ongoing projects of Rotaract Mora. We had 40+ submissions for Revelation 20.0. Newbies came up with dynamic, creative, and innovative project ideas and we are hoping to initiate a few from them next year as well by considering their feasibility and financial requirements.
Premio Formalita 2021 was the grand milestone in the Rotaract journey of the outstanding club members of Rotaract Mora, who worked hard and driven throughout the year to bring the club’s projects to life. It was the evening to recognize all our extraordinary inducted members, our hardworking and committed chairpersons, and the best performing Spirit of Service nominees of the year 2020/21. All the pillars of strength of the club and the partners for the Rotaract year 2020/21 were invited to the event to add glamour to the day’s proceedings.
When it comes to the process of induction, during the Rotaract year 2020/21 we had three induction ceremonies held via Zoom through which119 members were inducted into Rotaract Club of University of Moratuwa. All our newly inducted members received their Certificate of Membership. As mentioned before, by properly analyzing member contributions and project involvement through the newly initiated LinkR platform, we were able to find out the best performing members for this year and induct them into the club. The termination strategy of the club was digitized with LinkR as well and terminations were carried out three times during the Rotaract year 2020/21. The members who were inactive for more than two quarters of the year and members who left the university after graduation were terminated from the club database. The members who left the club after graduation were motivated to proceed with their Rotaract journey by joining Rotaract Club of Alumni of University of Moratuwa or any other community-based Rotaract Club.
We as the Membership Development Team, were able to finish the term on a high note by giving equal opportunities to all our members to discover their best versions, while recognizing member contributions and performances by regularly updating the newly initiated LinkR platform. Also, by hyping the curiosity of our newbies and increasing their engagement, we were able to implement the Rota Spark project by adapting to the new normal and thus filter them into the club assets pool and ensure their active involvement in the Rotaract movement through the project. As the final note, I as a Membership Development Co-Director, thoroughly enjoyed every moment I encountered throughout the year, while developing my interpersonal skills especially with regards to people management and leadership. Rotaract was yet another great opportunity for me to reveal the best version of myself towards my diversified life pattern.
