In reference to my favourite musical, My Fair Lady, we at Cardiff University Rotaract have been channelling our inner Eliza Doolittle recently. By this, I mean we have been learning how to develop our group with a little help from our own Professor – the global Rotaract community.
As many readers will know, Cardiff University Rotaract is a relatively new organisation with just a year under our belts. I’m sure you’ve read about some of the fantastic opportunities we’ve had over the past year and we are extremely proud of those achievements. However, we are very much still learning.
We want to transform from poor, helpless Eliza…
We’ve turned to our multicultural visitors and the social media community to help develop CU Rotaract into a Lady (or at least become less amature & all round awesome).
So what have we learned:
From Germany, Carina has taught us to be ambitious. KidsCamp, a huge project that involves a great number of volunteers to run a kids camp for under-privilaged children, had to start somewhere. We can dream big as long as we plan extensively with the right idea.
We also learned from Carina that our age group and current global economy requires additional skills and experience. We can gain this by visiting local businesses and networking to gain insight into the working world. It also means establishing vital connections that may be influential in our careers.
From Turkey, Itir Akmanlar taught us that making our officers feel special increases inspiration in other member to hold these positions in the future. By making a big deal of officers at Charter it also provides a personal introduction to the individual to others who may not have crossed paths.
Next, our much loved Italian Professors of Fun in all things Rotaract, Claudia & Alberto, have ad some very brilliant insights:
Claudia gave a talk for us about her Rotaract group in Bologne. She demonstrated how to do something fun while also generating funds. For example, her group put on a Fashion Show Fundraiser. Excellent. Importantly, she spoke about the importance of giving our time to help the most vulnerable in the community but we may as well have fun while we do that.
Alberto has been helping us inject more fun into our group. He is an advocate of looking after the group by fulfilling everyone’s need for fun with parties and activities. It develops a social connection within the group which is a very valuble asset of Rotaract.
Lastly, Social Media has been paramount in witnessing global interpretationsof Rotaract. It has been a pleasure to keep up with the progress of other groups and their projects in Britain and the rest of the world.
We see ourselves evolving into a unique & modern day Eliza!
Although we know no club has reached the final scene of fair perfection, we know that it is possible to achieve goodness and to achieve greatness by observing our global professors in all things Rotaract.
City of Cardiff Rotaract 