Martin Green
Dear Club Chairman,
I am writing to introduce myself – your newly elected National President of 41 Club and member of Abingdon & District and Isis Area 41 Clubs in Region 20.
It is a great honour for me to become National President and I am looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible throughout the year.
However the purpose of this letter is more than just an introduction.
Our predictions for our membership numbers are worrying. It is anticipated that we will drop to under 17,000 by the end of this year. This is ‘slow erosion’, but if we do not start to address this now, before we know it we will have the same situation that Round Table have faced – dropping from 32,000 members when I joined in 1984 to under 5,000 at present.
The main issue here is that Round Table’s size means that those retiring at 45 can no longer fill the gap in numbers caused by 41’ers passing away. To compact this problem, we estimate that only 20% of those leaving Table actually join us anyway.
So what can we do? Hopefully something!
Firstly if your Club still has a Round Table, please make every effort to encourage the retiring Tablers to join you. If they don’t – ask yourselves why? Does your Club offer what a retiring Tabler wants? If not, and your Club doesn’t want to embrace change to accommodate him or them, then perhaps you could help facilitate the opening of a new Club.
Secondly, what happened to the guys you all know who were in Round Table and never joined? We should make every effort to contact these and get them to come along and enjoy your fellowship. You never know – they may join!
Curtailing our membership erosion is a key target of your National Council and I would ask that it be on every members minds. London 2012 continually talked about leaving a legacy – we should think in the same way that we leave a legacy for those who follow us.
The second purpose of this letter is to introduce my charity. I am sure all of us have been affected by Cancer in some way or another. The current statistics are frightening. Currently one in three people will have cancer, and it is anticipated this will rise to one in two. 800 people are diagnosed every day.
I have chosen Macmillan Cancer Support as I believe they are giving massive support to those on the ‘Cancer Journey’ and their nearest and dearest around them. Macmillan have a multi-faceted approach to the issue – they are not just nurses – and I have been impressed by the dedication that they have to support and help ‘inform’ on the subject.
None of this comes for free and I would ask that you help support Macmillan throughout my Presidential Year. However, it is not just the money, its ‘spreading the word’ about what is on offer to help patients and families who are affected by this terrible disease. I have enclosed a leaflet about some of the services they provide.
Your National Councillor will be in touch soon to ‘encourage’ you to participate in something on behalf of Macmillan. Simple money donations are great but sometimes there are other more imaginative ways that can raise funds. For example – many of us host dinner parties for friends. Why not have a ‘Macmillan Dinner Party’ and instead of attendees bringing flowers or a bottle of wine for the host – ask them for £10 for Macmillan instead! If you don’t want to do that – each National Councillor has a book containing 100 ways of fund raising for Macmillan.
I hope you will support Macmillan – if every Club raised £100 – this would raise them £80,000!
I have asked Derek Knowlden of Isis Area 41 Club to act as Liaison Officer for Macmillan. He can be contacted on 01865 374441 or dmknowlden@btinternet.com
Thank you for your time in reading this. I would ask that you read this out or circulate it at your next available Club meeting. If you wish to discuss this further please do not hesitate to contact me at any time.
I look forward to hopefully meeting you during the year.
Yours in Continued Friendship
Martin
Martin Green
National President 2013-2014
president@41club.org
