Who will advise me?

As each of us is aware Rotary is one of the largest organizations anywhere which requires an annual leadership change. When leadership change is annual, communication and collaboration with experienced club leaders can become the essential ingredients in making club leadership successful.

This is especially true when the newly elected team has little experience with Rotary policies and procedures or lacks understanding of their own club’s rules. It happens it both large and small clubs.
One way to bring continuity and consistency to the transition is to form an advisory committee of your past presidents. Something similar was put into place in our district about 5 years ago and is called the Continuity Committee. It has proved to be very helpful to each successive administration.

Our club recognized that our leadership pool was diminishing and that we had a fount of knowledge resident in our past presidents. Late last Rotary year we decided to formalize the relationship the presidents had with the club and created a President’s Advisory Council (PAC). Of the 18 or so surviving and still active past presidents 11 agreed to serve.

The PAC is tasked with being available to advise the current president in “matters of importance to the future of Rotary and our club”.  The PAC has no authority and is completely voluntary for past presidents. The current president, vice president (president elect) and the next president (elect-elect) are members. The PAC has developed a leadership plan so potential future leaders of the club have somewhat of a road map to follow. The PAC has shared experience and created liaisons with other club committees such as membership, foundation and Rotary awards and it has, on its own initiative, brought concerns to the attention of the president and board.

Our PAC is just one way to make a place for our leadership to feel comfortable in a role that can be at once exciting, challenging and frustrating. As past presidents we also have a vested interest in seeing our club prosper in part by avoiding the mistakes we made or underlining how a success was achieved. Through the PAC we have an opportunity to serve. Maybe a PAC will work in your club too.