Rotary is coming back to Docklands

Rotary heavyweights are again attempting to forge a club in Docklands, but with a new approach this time.

The Docklands Rotary Club was formed in 2009 but struggled over later years and eventually folded last year.

But senior Rotarians Philip Archer and Neville John think they know how to succeed this time, by offering local corporations valuable mentoring for their millennial staff.

Mr Archer, a Southbank Rotary Club member and current district membership director, says a top-down approach would be made to the most senior corporate managers in Docklands to offer a valuable partnership.

“We want to talk to them about the best ways to develop their future leaders within their organisations,” Mr Archer said.

He said partner corporations would be given the opportunity to nominate young executives for the program. Extensive work would be undertaken to ensure that participants were matched with compatible mentors, programs and projects.

“One of the great things we can offer is the international reach of Rotary,” Mr Archer said.

“For many of these young people, the new club might be their first ‘board’ experience and a chance to develop into effective communicators.”

He said the new Docklands club would be a “satellite” club of Melbourne Central Rotary Club and would spend some years developing in this form until it was strong enough to stand alone.

Melbourne Central sponsored the first Rotary attempt in Docklands and, for Mr John, it is “unfinished business”.

He said the club regretted certain aspects of the earlier attempt and was strong and experienced in delivering structured mentoring programs.

“There is a sense of disappointment about what happened and we realise that much more time and effort is required to succeed,” Mr John said.

Mr John is Rotary district 9800’s incoming membership director and says he is keen for some of the experienced local Rotarians to re-engage.

“We want to take something to the community of Docklands, both corporations and residents, to see what sort of club they would participate in,” Mr John said.

He said his club had numerous high-levels connections that would soon be used to start the process.

An information session has been scheduled for Tuesday, February 20 at a Central Pier venue.

He said the new club would initially not have its own office bearers, although it would have its own meetings – but not necessarily every week.

Mr John said members could participate in any number of local or international projects, many of which were “quite intellectual”.

The first Docklands Rotary Club chartered with 30 members on June 11, 2009. It was wound up last June when president Loryn Clark told Docklands News it had to shut down after a long time of struggling to gain commitment from the community.

“We just couldn’t get people to commit to the club. They didn’t seem that interested,” Ms Clark said. “It got too hard to keep things going.”

Mr John can be contacted on 0417 387 216 or email [email protected]