Best Practices

by admin · Published March 1, 2023 · Updated March 13, 2023

MESSAGE:
Zonta District 1 (covering the New England states USA and Nova Scotia CA) is starting an eClub the Zonta e-Club of Atlantic Northeast.

We could use some help from sister Zontians in existing e-Clubs – so we are reaching out to see if you might consider either:
(1) Joining our Club Creator team in a Zoom meeting to share what your e-Club meetings look like; what service, advocacy, and fundraising activities have worked for your club; what challenges you have had to overcome; and any other advice that you wish you had when you started the club.
OR providing this information in writing if a meeting is not practical.
or
(2) Making a VERY short video or writing a testimonial about the benefits of being in a Zonta e-Club – that we could use in promoting this idea in our District.

Thanks for your consideration and let us know if we can support you in some way.

e-Club of Queensland 15 hours ahead AEST
Many thanks for your contact and connection. As an e-introduction I am currently President of the e-Club of Queensland, Australia, which is part of District 22. Our Club was chartered in 2019, and we have just over 20 members across our state of Queensland, but also a couple of other interstate members. I would be happy to join the Club Creator team in a Zoom meeting and/or write a short testimonial if that is more suitable. Please let me know what might work best for all.

Kind regards Marie Cameron, President Zonta eClub of Queensland | M: 0407 648 636 | peteandmars@bigpond.com
Ansmarie Van Erp, Past President | vanerpa@gmail.com

Zoom meeting – Sunday 3/12/23 @6pm EST with Marie, Ans, Donna S., Janice, Nadine and Mary
Started 4 years ago with 8 existing Zontians whose life situations needed an online club choice – early trust. It has been a challenge to get and keep NEW people – establish trust, engagement, finding purpose.
Summary of ideas heard:

+ Don’t overcommit – be innovative but practical

+ Include fellowship (Zonta Spirit), on purpose. Loose the formality. Focus on benefits of working together, making a difference.

+ Buddy system with new folks – identify interests/strengths, root cause for joining, get engaged asap

+ Collaborate with other clubs; focus service/advocacy/education outreach efforts on areas other clubs are missing (don’t compete)

+ Plan out meetings for the year with input from members – some business, great speakers, committee breakout meetings, fun activities. Don’t reinvent – ZI has LOTS of great videos and tools to use

+ Decide on fundraising goal for the year – individuals or groups of members find ways to generate money toward goal

+ Use social media Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) to attract professionals and sell Zonta.

+ Consider webinars on important issues (financial wealth; health issue) to attract interest – charge a nominal fee and use profits to donate to a related cause.

+ Forums with other e-clubs – share and learn about creative ideas other e-clubs have tried. Ans is organizing and will include us

+ Dues are about the same as in-person clubs. Club portion is used for banking fees, zoom subscription, Dropbox (central place to store club resources), items to use when in person – name tags, banners, promotional material.

+ GET STARTED – generate a list of 50 + people (former Zontians, friends, family) and invite to an information session in May (Donna Sroka working on getting a speaker) that will include a plug for membership. Hopefully ½ will come and ¼ will join!

e-Club of Italy

Hello Mary, Nice to hear from you! I can definitely write something up for you to share our experience as e-club and its undeniable benefits. When would you need it by? Have a nice day and weekend,

Warm regards,Lucia Zonta e-club of Italy, President | https://www.facebook.com/zontaeclubitaly/ | lucia.mascotelli@gmail.com

e-Club of Germany

Julia Nolte, M.A., M.Sc. (she/her) | julianolte.org

VIDEO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QmIGOEvpzFGzWW8rGZO8JAOp6LNpRTTE/view

What your e-Club meetings look like

We meet via zoom (online) once a month for 1.5-2 hours. Once a year in the summer, we schedule an in-person meeting in a German city convenient for most attendees. We then meet for several hours/ a whole day, eating together and walking around the city.
At our meetings, we cover summaries of recent events (e.g., if one of us met with another e-club or attended an event), discuss projects (such as fundraising attempts), discuss things to vote on (such as policy changes or Zonta International representatives), etc. At some of our meetings, we have speakers join us to tell us about their topic of expertise.

What service, advocacy, and fundraising activities have worked for your club

We typically do online advocacy/fundraising
- our most successful events have been Zoom presentations with experts from within our club and outside of our club, with attendance by 15-50 guests, typically from the German Zonta community. Our most successful event raised 1,290 EUR in one evening. At our last event – about Home Care International in Kenya – we also sent attendees Kenyan ingredients/spices prior to the evening in exchange for 5 EUR, to create a shared experience/make it feel more engaging.
- we use Facebook and our website to draw attention to issues such as Zonta Says No, the Istanbul Convention petition, etc. – this is to raise awareness, collect signatures, collect donations
- We are currently considering offering another type of online event to generate donations, such as an online wine or chocolate tasting experience
- We want to expand our online advocacy to other platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.)
In-person fundraising
- at the 2022 Zonta Convention in Hamburg, Germany, we ‘sold’ Zonta brooches (designed by one of our members), UN brooches, and items made by myself and another member (embroidered Zonta merch, Zonta-inspired bracelets) to generate donations.
One of our members is involved in efforts to start a Zonta presence in Poland.

What challenges you have had to overcome

We live in different countries (Germany, Netherlands, Poland, US) and I, the president, live 6 time zones apart from the others. Some of our members have never met in person so far – partially due to the pandemic – and that has made it hard to foster a feeling of belonging.
Our club is very young (most members around ~30 years old) and our members are time-poor: They are working on Ph.D.s, traveling a lot for work, or are young mothers. That means we are often having issues with attendance, with some people struggling to make the meetings. As a result, the work has to be done by fewer people and it is hard to make joint decisions as a club. In recent months, we often had to do online polls to generate opinions on questions like (1) which Zonta International charity project to support, (2) how much to donate to help the people suffering from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, (3) where and when to meet in person this year, etc.

Advice that you wish you had when you started the club

It took a long time! We first met in mid-2017 to meet other young German women generally interested in forming a club. We started having monthly meetings then but did not have the necessary number of members or structures in place (e.g., a bank account) until December 2019, when we were officially chartered as a Zonta club.
Zonta clubs and e-clubs all work very differently! Some have a joint meal every time, some only discuss Zonta business within the club board, some go through formal meeting requirements every time etc.
It is important to network with other clubs and e-clubs to share ideas on how to foster belonging, raise funds, etc.
We are currently re-structuring club meetings to address some problems we have been having with attendance, teams not making progress etc.: We now start the meeting with 20-30 minute team breakout rooms, with 3 overarching teams: media (Facebook, website, online advocacy, giving interviews and the like), membership (finding new members, generating content for our meetings, planning our in-person meetings), and fundraising/advocacy (ideas to raise money and awareness).

e-Club of Finland 1

I’m sorry about the delay in answering. I would be happy to join your meeting to discuss e-Club activities. If it is not possible to have a meeting I can send a short resume about the issues and ways of working in our club. It is always nice and useful to have common meetings with other e-Club zontians. Our club, Zonta e-Club of Finland 1, was established in 2015 and I have been a member since then and act as current club president.
Best wishes and success for your work,

______________

Best Practices

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