Kevin McConnell for I-I District Governor-Elect

Leadership... Developed by Kiwanis... for Kiwanis

Vision for the Future
	I-I District Convention House of Delegates Speech At the Annual I-I Contention in Peoria during the Saturday morning House of Delegates session, Kevin was nominated for the office of Governor-Elect. He then delivered a speech on the future of the I-I District and was unanimously elected Governor-Elect for the 2008-09 Kiwanis year. Download Kevin's Speech (pdf)

	Membership Development & Retention To attract new members, we must constantly assess club effectiveness. Specific time period membership drives should be focused and fun. New member orientations help new members feel welcome, which also helps increase member retention rate.

	New Club Building While strengthening existing clubs, we must actively seek opportunities to start new Kiwanis Clubs. Building in new communities (or existing Kiwanis communities that are under-served) provides more hands to perform services and more creative ideas to meet needs in our communities. We will also be better able to support the growing need for our Service Leadership Programs.

	Learning & Development Clarity in training and goal setting is especially important, given that the average club president has been a member for only three years. We must start with the end (our goals) in mind. I will focus training around the distinguished club officer training criteria, providing constant updates to clubs and divisions on their progress throughout the year.

	Service Leadership Programs (SLP) With my background as a Key Club member, and an advisor to Builders, Key, and Circle K clubs, I firmly believe we need to raise the bar on sponsoring all of our clubs in the district. We can accomplish this by modeling positive relationships at the district level and encouraging a family/team environment throughout the division and club levels. Kiwanis Lt. Governors will be encouraged and rewarded for positive growth in SLP clubs. To further emphasize the importance of the SLP clubs, we must take every opportunity to remind our members to fulfill this sponsorship commitment.

	Role of the District One overriding question must be asked about everything we do at the district level, in all corners of our organization: Does it provide added value for our clubs and members? Just as a club is encouraged to do an annual survey of its members, our district should be doing the same. This assessment would allow us to determine our strengths and weaknesses, as well as help us to determine where to best deploy our limited resources.

	Communications Technology has provided us a growing number of communication options. In order to manage all of our options more effectively, a communication council (chaired by the Governor’s Assistant) will be created to help assure that we are getting the right information…to the right people…using the right communication path(s). We also need to explore existing technology to increase our ability to directly e-mail to our members (and assure that the message is opened). With a limited budget, this would help increase our communication options across our membership.

	Leadership Development We need to increase the interest in leadership across all levels and all programs in our organization. We do this by partnering emerging leaders with established leaders, and creating more of an active committee structure at the district level. We will also develop new leaders by setting clear expectations and clear measures of success…and supporting them as they pursue measurable goals.

	Managing Change I support change, but not just for the sake of change. Changes that we consider must go back to our fundamental question: Does it provide/add value for our clubs and members? I will start with areas of our organization where I feel we are underperforming and will start asking questions to determine a root cause. If changes are needed for the improvement of our organization, we should not hesitate to do something different.