Author: Dave

Serving the children of the world

MiniBuilder the newsletter of the Capital District

December 2011 — January 2012 Dave Maloney, Editor

Governor’s Message by Governor Jeffrey Wolff

Greetings everyone, I hope that you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving holiday! For December, my message focuses on leadership and succession planning. One of the greatest advantages to our organization, Kiwanis and Service Leadership Programs alike, is that any member can step up into any of numerous leadership positions we have to offer.
We have had dynamic and inspiring leaders at all levels of Kiwanis here in the Capital District over our great history. Yet, in recent years, interest in leadership positions both within the club and outside of it, have dwindled significantly. There is no question that there exists a direct correlation between membership and club leadership. Quality leaders motivate new people to join and existing members to do more.
Does your Kiwanis club have contested elections for officer positions each spring or do you have a board that simply changes seats each year to "mix things up?" It's imperative that clubs create a "leadership pipeline" within their club. If you don't already do this, you could assign a particular officer or director to be responsible for tracking each members skills and their involvement and approach them about stepping up to the next level. If they are a good member, directly ask them to chair a project. If they've been involved for a few years in the club, ask them to serve as a director.
Many clubs announce that they are looking for project chairs, but few take the time to individually ask members who have limited involvement to take on a new task. Instead, we take the path of least resistance and ask an already overused member to do something else for the club. This can lead to "burn-out" of our existing active members and the potential for that involved member to drop out.
Does your club look at the profession and/or skill set of prospective and new members and identify right away which committee they should serve on? Many clubs overlook professional backgrounds when getting new members involved.
Some clubs control who will take each officer position, but contested and open elections are fantastic for club morale. Members want to see that multiple people in their club want to serve and lead. It energizes the morale and causes more people to want leadership positions. The campaigning process is also extremely good for personal development of your members. Consider creating an environment in your club that encourages new people to step into leadership positions at any level without having to go through "all of the chairs." Sometimes the most dynamic club president could be someone that recognizes that they could never be an effective club secretary or treasurer. If your club imposes a pre-requisite that you have to hold one of those positions before being president, you could be missing out on quality leadership.
Does your club have an officer or director assigned to be in charge of strategic planning for your club? Some clubs use their immediate past president as the person who is the keeper of the club's long range plan. That way, there is focus beyond the current year on what the club strives to accomplish. Part of that also includes how your club plans its future leadership development. Our District Committee on Long Range Planning, chaired by Past Lt. Governor Judy Pantelides and Past Lt. Governor Linda Smith have just released a survey on club planning. I encourage each of you to visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3MZWF9Z and take a few minutes to complete it.
Once you have your pipeline established, its important to think about how you transition your leaders from one year to the next. One of the biggest challenges our organization faces is that we re-invent the wheel quite a bit as new set of leaders take over each October 1st. Does your club do a formal transition and briefing from one board to the next or joint planning sessions? If not, this practice can ease the hand-over and prevent the new board from spending their time working on things already addressed by previous administrations. Also it is good to ensure that your club has a written policy code that dictates how the club operates at a level more granular than your club bylaws. This gives new boards something to reference and maintain club continuity.
It's also very important that your club president-elect be involved with everything the president and vice presidents of your club do. This is their planning year and they need to have the right education and resources to make sure that their year is president is as successful as they want it to be. Make sure that your president-elect attends their Club Leadership Education session, held in May and June. It's vital that they go through the process even if they have been a club president before. Right now, about 20% of our Kiwanis clubs don't even have a president-elect. That means that they are already months behind in planning for 2012-2013. You might think that it's not a big deal, but it leads to other leadership challenges.
A perfect example of this is that currently only 8 out of 21 of our divisions have lt. governors-elect. That means that over 60% of our divisions have no one planning for next year. Many will have difficulty getting anyone to step forward for the position in the spring when its time for elections. Again, its imperative that the division, much like the club have a person or persons responsible for finding upcoming leaders and the only KI requirement is that they have been a club president. That means anywhere from 5-12 new Kiwanis members in that division are eligible for that position each year.
Why do we struggle to find lt. governor or for that matter club presidents candidates? Why haven't we had a contested race for governor-elect in 5 years in this district? I believe that a strong part of the reason for this is because of attitude of some of our veteran members. Some members who have held leadership positions, "poison the well" as I like to call it. This usually involves speaking about leadership positions they've held in exaggerated or negative terms. For example, if you hear a member say that when they were lt. governor, they attended all of the club and board meetings for all of their clubs, you might expect that that is the requirement and as a result, not be interested for the job. When in fact, lt. governors are only expected to make 3 club visits to each club during the whole year. I'm sure each of you at some point has heard someone make a joke about so-and-so not being present for the club meeting and therefore they were elected president. This is the kind of self-deprecating humor that hurts our leadership development because it cheapens the role. Why would anyone want to seek the presidency of their Kiwanis club if no one respects the position? These are the kinds of things we need to be cognizant of if we want to grow our organization. Many clubs do this well, but not all and this is where our work has to begin.
Jen and I wish you and your family the happiest in the upcoming holiday season and look forward to seeing many of you at the Midwinter Conferences that will be starting in January. Thank you for listening, thank you for being a Kiwanian and have a very Happy New Year!

(cont’d on page 2)

Quality leaders motivate new people to join and existing members to do more.

An Admonition: Return to the Basics by Sec/Treas Tom Varner

(Editor’s note: This edition of the MiniBuilder contains two articles by Sec/Treas Tom. They are both of significance. Each contains important information of which we should all be aware.)
At the recently-held K-Family weekend at Front Royal, VA 4-H Center, I heard many comments that kept leading me back to one phrase -"Back to the Basics." This week I, along with all of the President Neal's Class of Governors, received a very disheartened email discussing the serious loss in members that Kiwanis International experienced in September - over 5% of the membership. Going into the first week in September 2011, Kiwanis was at a plus. And the Capital District was at a plus 7 members for the year. Then we lost over 320 members in the District on September 30 and another 120 on October 1. This loss also leads me, once again, back to the phrase, "Back to the Basics."
What do I mean by "Back to the Basics?" It is really quite simple: we are losing our Kiwanis roots. Newly-elected Kiwanis Officers at all levels either are "already experts" or they cannot "take the time to learn how to do their jobs properly." Today, many people today embrace the electronic future. But, that is only a tool. If we do not learn "how" to do and "why" to do, no amount of fancy gadgets or online wizardry will save us.
One of the most-asked questions after the 2010 District Convention in Lynchburg was, "Why did you not attend the "Kiwanis 101" session? " We are inducting Kiwanians who do not know and are not taught what the purpose of Kiwanis. They do not understand the basic organization of Kiwanis and the many tools that Kiwanis provides - hands-on as well as electronic - that exist to help all members, but especially club officers.
Yes, I am an educator and a trainer and have been for most of my life. Yes, I do believe in life-long education for everyone. Yes, I believe that no one is too old to learn. We may slow down but we can still learn. Until a person knows everything there is to know in this world, they have a challenge in front of them, and that is to keep learning either through formal classes, reading, or holding intelligent conversations with people who have valid knowledge.
For years, I have said that Kiwanis needs to stop worrying about gaining a million members and, instead, work on getting a lesser number of people who are or can be true, committed Kiwanians-members who recognize that there is work to be done in our communities: work that can be done more efficiently and effectively performed by a group of folks working together. They are people who realize the value of developing strong and vital youth organizations like Kiwanis Kids, Builders Clubs, Key Clubs, and CKI clubs. They are Kiwanians who will prepare our young people to be the adult leaders of tomorrow and beyond. They are leaders who help develop a new generation of leaders through programs such as Key Leader. Finally, they are compassionate people who want to develop the skills of the challenged members of our society by building, developing and advising the Aktion Clubs.
This year let us all make a vow to make Kiwanis stronger through dedicating ourselves to learning and growing. Let us make our total organization stronger by working with and developing our Service Leadership Programs. Let's go BACK-TO-THE-BASICS.

(cont’d on page 5)

Governor’s Message (cont’d from page 1)

Many clubs overlook professional backgrounds when getting new members involved.

(cont’d on page 4)

The MiniBuilder is published six times a year in February, April, June, August, October, December by the Capital District of Kiwanis International
Dave Maloney, Editor dave@maloney.com P.O. Box 2049 Frederick, MD 21702 301-228-2279 Deadline email submissions to dave@maloney.com last day of the month preceding publication
Capital District Kiwanis International
Organized August 23, 1918
Governor Jeffrey M. Wolff 14034 Rose Lodge Place Chantilly, VA 20151-2247
w-617-279-0140 c-703-615-4477
jeffrey@wolff.net
Secretary-Treasurer Tom Varner 13065 Riverside Court
Ashland, VA 23005-3132
h-804-798-8497 c-804-514-7826
thomas.varner@comcast.net
Governor-Elect Carolyn Richar 8511 Virginia Ave Annandale, VA 22003-3637 Chantilly, VA 20151-2247
703-505-0265
crichar@capitalhospice.org
Immediate Past Governor
Don Dudey
1110 Kingsbury Rd.
Owings Mills, MD 21117
h-410-356-5707 c-443-794-1112
ddudey@verizon.net
Capital District Foundation
Executive Secretary Charles P. Adams 1601 Charrington Drive Midlothian, VA 23113 804-794-1019 govadams@aol.com

Secretary’s Message by Sec/Treas Tom Varner

Thanksgiving is now gone, it is Black Friday, and it is one month to Christmas. For some reason these two holidays for Americans have become even more linked with the rush to go to stores and make money. Sometimes, we gobble the gobbler, tape the football games, and visit as many family members as we can in the shortest period of time all to be ready to spend our money by joining with the one-third of Americans who will participate in the Black Friday craziness.
In all of the hustle and bustle, did we remember to say "Thank You?" We really do have much to be thankful for these days. Most of us are enjoying good health (age adjusted of course); we have loving families and friends; we have many brave servicemen away from their homes so we can enjoy our peace and security; and we have the opportunity to help and to serve others. We should be thankful that Kiwanis gives us the opportunity to join together with our fellow members to serve the children of the world and to make communities better places to live.
I would suggest that we can do a couple of things to show our thanks for being able to serve. First, find your Kiwanis sponsor and thank them for giving you to opportunity to be a Kiwanian. Second, find some place in your community where you can give back for what you have received. Get your club involved if that is appropriate, but serve those who need your help. Finally, find someone who needs to be a Kiwanian and invite them to join. In this issue there is a list of 34 of our newest members and the Kiwanians who sponsored them. If you know them thank them both for being in Kiwanis.
As we move into the third month of the year, there are some opportunities that must be addressed by Club Secretaries. Let me mention two. First is the matter of Monthly Reports. The prior months report is due to Kiwanis International via the electronic reporting stem by the 10th day of the following month. So by November 10th we should have had all of the clubs October reports. We are missing over 49 of them.
A couple possible snags could have occurred. First if you are a new Secretary, your predecessor did not complete and submit the Club's Election Report last spring. Or, your name was entered but you email was not correct. In either case you cannot get into the system because your email is the key to accessing the program. To solve this check with last year's Secretary and insure he entered your email correctly. Second, if you still have problem contact Member Services at Kiwanis International at 1-800-549-2647, ext. 411 and explain your problem.
The other opportunity for Secretaries to assist their clubs is by making sure all for the email addresses and other information on each member is correct. Many members do not believe it is important or they forget to notify their Secretary when their contact information changes. Only the Club Secretary can change the email address in the Kiwanis International files. The fallout of this carries forward as every three months the Kiwanis International directory for the District is downloaded to the District Directory and if the member information has not been corrected it will be wrong in our directory.
These are two parts of the Secretary's job that can make a big difference for their Club and the Members.

In Memoriam

October—November 2011
M Gregory, Chesapeake B Lackey, Petersburg Ronald Campana, Williamsburg Club J Pence, Roanoke Club Nancy McCormick, Franklin Club L. P. Brewer, Peninsula, VA Hugh Davies, Suffolk, VA John Woodfin, Richmond, VA Thatcher Wood, Richmond, VA James Lay, Westminster, MD

(cont’d on page 5)

As we move into the third month of the year, there are some opportunities that must be addressed by Club Secretaries.

Governor’s Message (cont’d from page 2)

Governor’s Message (cont’d from page 1)

It's also very important that your club president-elect be involved with everything the president and vice presidents of your club do.

(cont’d on next page

Governor’s Message (cont’d from previous page)

Secretary’s Message (cont’d from page 3)

Admonition (cont’d from page 1)

(cont’d on page 6)

It is really quite simple: we are losing our Kiwanis roots.

Admonition (cont’d from page 5)

Key Leader

This year let us all make a vow to make Kiwanis stronger through dedicating ourselves to learning and growing.

Identify Students NOW for 2012 Key Leader
Key Leader is Kiwanis's values-centered, weekend leadership education program for high school students. In 2012, there will be THREE Key Leader weekends for 2012:
#1 -- April 27-29, 2012 Arlington Echo Outdoor Educational Center, Millersville, MD
#2 -- May 18-20, 2012 Jamestown 4-H Educational Center, Williamsburg, VA
#3 -- November 9-11, 2012 Northern Virginia 4-H Educational Center, Front Royal, VA 22630
Key Leader events are open to any 9th-12th grade students (in or out of Key Club).
Kiwanis Clubs should begin identifying students NOW so that when registration opens in January, students can be registered as soon as possible. Because our past events were so successful, we look forward to repeated success in 2012, times three!
It is $200/student (or $175/student if the student is a member of Key Club or Builders Club). For such a small amount of money, Kiwanis can truly make a difference in a young adult's life. Please plan to send at least one student to the event most geographically convenient to your club. Kiwanis Clubs are welcome to send students to more than one event if its possible financially and students have been identified - we would love that! For more about Key Leader or to register go to http://www.key-leader.org.

Key Club Celebrates 35 Years!

Warwick Club Honors Joe Kalista

Michelle Sewald, Division 23 Key Club Lt Gov, and Zach Carter, Poquoson High School Key Club President, cut the cake celebrating the club's 35th anniversary at the club's meeting on November 16, 2011. Key Club is an international student-led organization which provides its members with opportunities to provide service, build character and develop leadership. more than 80 members of the Key Club make significant contributions to Poquoson and the surrounding community. They've been very busy in Adopt a Spot and have raised more than $1300 this year to support the Kiwanis ELIMINATE project to eliminate neo-natal Tetanus world wide. They are very active in community projects, providing road guards for the annual MPS run/walk that takes place in October. In December they will ring bells to support the Salvation Army at the Poquoson Farm Fresh and the K-Mart on Victory Blvd. They will also have a float in the upcoming Poquoson Christmas parade.

For a number of years, Joe Kalista with Kiwanis Club of Warwick, has had a beautiful Christmas village set up for the enjoyment of the seniors living in his apartment building. Several Kiwanians have helped in the past but this year the Kiwanians did it for Joe! Due to physical ailments, Joe moved out of his apartment and into his son's home. Joe has been unable to attend Kiwanis meetings and events. Several Kiwanians decided to put the Christmas village together in his honor this year. Nicole Talton, Vice-President with Virginia Bank Company and member of the Kiwanis Club of City Center allowed the village to be displayed at her bank in Newport News City Center. Judy Pantelides, with the Kiwanis Clubs of Downtown Hampton and the Young Professional Educators, together with her husband and support from members of Joe's Warwick club, Maggie Keator and Bill Forrest, created the beautiful village there in Joe's honor. Congratulations Joe!

For the 79th year, the Kiwanis Club of Charlottesville is selling Christmas trees and hand-made wreaths to earn money to support club service projects mainly benefiting children and youth. Kiwanis sponsors Key Clubs in five local high schools, a CKI Club at the University of Virginia, a Central Little League team, and holds an annual Holiday Party for Persons with Disabilities at WorkSource Enterprises.

MiniBuilder the newsletter of the Capital District

David Maloney, Editor P.O. Box 2049 Frederick, MD 21702
Phone: 301-228-2279
dave@maloney.com

We’re on the Web!
Capital.Kiwanisone.org

K-Kids Club Raises Money for the ELIMINATE Project
by Jennifer Wolff, Kiwanis Club of Tysons Corner/McLean VA

The K-Kids Club of Pinecrest School (sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Tysons Corner/McLean, Virginia) had a lemonade stand on October 21st at the school's Fun Fair carnival day. The students raised $227.01 for The Eliminate Project. Kiwanis International and UNICEF are partnering together on this project to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus, a deadly disease that steals the lives of nearly 60,000 innocent babies and a significant number of women each year.
One second grade member summed up the group's sentiments, "I felt very good selling lemonade because I could help more mothers and babies from tetanus." The K-Kids Club is also doing Trick or Treat for Unicef to raise more money for this cause.
The Pinecrest School K-Kids Club has 29 members in grades 2-6. K-Kids is an international student-led organization providing members with opportunities to perform service, build character and develop leadership.

Kiwanis International and UNICEF have joined forces to combat maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT) worldwide.

(cont’d on page 5)

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MiniBuilder December 2011 – January 2012

MiniBuilder December 2011 – January 2012

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