how to increase the membership of women in rotary

Carolina Ruiz Amo Rotary Club Jerez de la Frontera

Task Force - Zone 13B District 2203 Spain

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Report for

Jacques Di Costanzo

Rotary Club – Jerez de la Frontera - District 2203 (Spain)

Carolina Ruiz Amo

-February 2013 -



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In November 2012 Mr Jacques Di Costanzo, Director of Rotary International of Zone 13B,

where my country (Spain) falls under, asked me to become part of Rotary Task Force in order

to contribute to President Elect Ron Burton goals and objectives. In my case I was asked to

focus on women and to promote Rotary within women to increase their membership.

After brainstorming and thinking of ideas and ways to carry out my job, I happened to travel to

Paris to meet my best friend´s new born. I happened to enter the famous Parisian Shopping

mall, Galleries Lafayette, where I saw a whole floor full of cooking utensils, cake and dessert

materials and particularly a large variety of colorful cupcake products. It was at that time that I

realized: women all around the World have in common and share their cooking interest; it is

International and it has no boundaries.

I then came back to Spain and contacted all of the cooking teachers, specialized in desserts

and cupcakes. Many did not want to help me, and as the economic situation in Spain is

terrible, nobody wanted to help me for charity and therefore not get paid. However, one day I

managed to meet two ladies who were not from my city but nearby who were very

enthusiastic about my Project: Organizing a Charity Cupcake course for Rotary.

We met various times and planned the organization. I decided that the best date to organize

this would be on Rotary´s 108 Anniversary on the 23rd February, which was a Saturday. I

draw a Business plan where I thought if we managed to get 30 women registered paying 40€

each we will manage to achieve 1200€ to give to charity. The teachers were very hesitant that

I could manage to get more than 10 registered, but I didn´t look down and continued my plan

and hard work. The date was agreed and the teachers also enthusiastically were happy to

give out the course for charity.

The next step was to design a brochure which was colorful and attractive, yet with all the

information needed in order to get people registers and specially the Rotary wheel very

present.

I thought of the Event should have 5 objectives:

1. Increase Rotary’s Public image within the community

2. Organize a fun event where people would have a great enjoyable day

3. Organize something where people would learn and could take home with them

4. Promote and explain to women what Rotary is and does

5. Charity objective: help people who need to be helped in my community

Rotary Cupcake Charity Course



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Together with our designer we thought of various options and we decided on the following:



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Although we had another option which was very colorful and attractive but one could not tell

that it was cupcakes. The first one was more visual.



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1. Increase Rotary´s Public Image within the Community

From the end of January until the 23rd February I had a whole month to promote this event

and get Rotary close to women. Together with my father Pedro Ruiz and my brother Pablo

Ruiz Amo, we managed to promote the event on the local television, on three radio shows,

various times during various weeks in the newspaper, social media and more than 5000

brochures where given out in schools, hairdressers, shops, dance school, supermarkets and

kinder gardens.



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More than 5000 brochures were given out in various public places where I thought would be frequented mostly by women. One main Shopping mall we went was Ikea.

We also made many post on Facebok and our Rotary activities Blogg.

During St. Valentine´s day we also gave out promotional leaflets so that people Could buy the course for their love ones:



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From all the different marketing sources I used I realized the most effective was the word of mouth.



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When the day came, together with my father we prepared everything, we printed all the documents that we would give out and all the name tags.



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2. Organise a Fun Event

In order for the event to be a success, it was important to me that people would have a fun

day, and remember the event as having a great time! Therefore, should I organize another in

the future they would gladly join. People would have two sessions to choose from: one in the

morning (from 10H to 14H) and one in the afternoon (from 16:30H to 20:30H). The cost of the

course was 40€ and all the materials were included. We had some theory explained by the

teacher and then each woman had the chance to design their own cupcakes and take them

home to show their families. Women really loved this! I also contacted a book shop to bring

dessert and specialized cupcake books to sell, and we agreed a 10% for the charity cause in

all their sales. I also contacted a shop which also sold cupcake cooking products which I also

invited to be present at the course and negotiated a 20% of their sales for my charity cause.

They also were very kind and prepared cupcakes with the Rotary wheel logo on them for

women to take during their coffee break.



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3. A Learning Experience

Rather than organizing something that people would watch I thought it would be interesting

teaching something people would learn and do at home and remember the event and

therefore: remember Rotary! Hence I contacted all the cooking teachers in the region so that

they would generously teach women how to bake cupcakes and decorate them for every

occasion. We also gave a diploma to each person at end of the course with the Rotary logo,

so whenever they hang it at home, Rotary will always be present.



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Most women that came to the course did not know about Rotary. Beside from some our fellow

Rotarian wives most have never heard of Rotary before. We therefore, planned to present a

video explaining what Rotary does around the World. The video was only 5 minutes long

however during the presentation (both in the morning and afternoon sessions) we gave out

blue small Rotary brochures which explained what Rotary is as a complement to the video.

We also had a fellow Rotarian of my Club who took a few minutes to explain to people our

projects and what we did; he even tried to decorate a cupcake himself!! People were also

grateful to know which organization would take care of their funds and how they were going to

be used. Everyone was extremely happy and interested.

4. Promote of Rotary to Women



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5. Personal Objective: Help those In Need

Personally this objective was for me the most important one out of the five. As a 31 year old

woman, I had never had the chance of organizing something for charity by myself and let

alone be able to collect 2300€ for charity. When I first proposed this Project in my club, no

one really understood and saw my vision. They thought it was only to promote Rotary within

women and no one could relieve believe I could collect such an amount. Together with the

sale of books, sale of products, 42 people registers, donations and together with a raffle I

managed to collect a grand total amount of 2300€ for Rotary.

I gave the news to my club one week before the course and together with the President we

decided that through Rotary we would give the Money to a large supermarket and they would

multiply by three the food to be given to a soup kitchen. I even asked the President of the

soup Kitchen to come to the course to thank everyone for their contribution and to explain the

terrible situation in which many families are going through right now due to the economic

crisis. He even tried one of Rotary cupcakes too!

The raffle was an excellent way to collect last minute contributions. We bought come cupcake

products and got donated various books from bookshops which helped me have 12 presents

for the raffle, 6 in the morning and 6 in the afternoon.

Due to the extra sales and the raffle I managed to collect even more Money during the event

which brought the grand total amount to be 2300€.



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Conclusions

It was an Amazing unique personal experience. To be able to get more than 42

people in the course, do contribute economically and be able to collect 2300 € for

charity was something incredible for me.

The best marketing source I found was the word of mouth

Giving out brochures but particularly having the chance to meet Rotarians and watch

a video about Rotary was the best most effective way to communicate the Rotary

message to women

I could not have done any of it without the support of my sister, my brother Pablo and

above all my parents.

how to increase the membership of women in rotary

Documents

fronteratask force zone

rotary task force

spaincarolina ruiz amo

rotary activities blogg

rotary wheel verypresent

b district

father pedro ruiz

charity cupcake course