Strategic Review Approved!
In August, Royal Military Colleges Club of Canada (RMCCC) General Council received the final report of the Strategic Review Steering Committee (SRSC) which was appointed last year to assess the membership of the Club to determine the causes of dissatisfaction and decreasing engagement of graduates. The report was unanimously approved, and Council issue a motion to appoint an implementation team to act on the recommendations of the report.
The SRSC consisted of 11 members under the co-chairmanship of Reg Watts and Bruce McAlpine. They studied existing data on membership associations, and conducted a survey of top alumni associations in Canada and the military academies in the USA and Australia. They then held 40 personal interviews with a broad range of Club members/potential members across the country. All of this was used to design the full member survey launched online in April, 2012 to which an astounding 2660 members responded.
The overall impression from that response is that graduates really care about the college, their classmates, and the Club. As suspected however, the Club is not serving the needs of all very well. The traditional programs and services are not enough to fit with the various generational needs and attitudes of the Club’s potential membership.
An incredible number of suggestions were made by survey respondents, and it took months of work to consolidate this information into a report which makes 29 specific recommendations under the major headings of :
1 Restructuring of the organizational structure and Governance Model of the Club to make it more effective and more responsive to the needs of its members;
2 Tailoring and delivery of programs and services to meet the varying needs of our multi-generational membership;
3 Better, more robust, meaningful two-way communications.
The totality of the report became the outline of a new Vision for the RMCCC. It addresses the generational diversity of membership and proposes strategies to re-engage the members. In the interest of proving to members that the Club means business, the implementation team will be tasked to accomplish as many of the recommendations as possible within 12 months.
During the following months details from the report will be shared with the membership as an initial stage of improving dialogue.