Rotary International President Stephanie Urchuck

Talking Rotary is back with a bang! This episode will feature Rotary International President  Stephanie Urchick in conversation with guest host Joe Solway. Recorded earlier this summer, they talk about her rise in Rotary and the year ahead.

It is a fascinating and insightful conversation. Please find it on your favourite podcast host. You will be glad you did!

Transcript

joe solway: 0:20

Hi, I'm Joe Solway, proud member of the Rotary Club of Bowmanville, which is just east of the great city of Toronto, Canada. Months to come, I will be filling in for the incomparable Peter Tonge as your host of Talking Rotary while Peter prepares for and serves as governor for district 5550, I'm looking forward to bringing you some great stories from Rotarians around the world learning who they are, the great work they're doing to make that world a better place. We are honored to have as our guest today, Stephanie Urchick. She is the president and elect of Rotary International her year long term starting July 1 2024 she is the second woman to serve as president after Canada's Jennifer Jones last year. Stephanie is a proud member of the McMurray Rotary Club, which builds itself as the fastest growing Rotary Club in the Pittsburgh area, and was at one time, a singer with a band the harmoniers. Welcome to Talking Rotary

Stephanie Urchick: 1:35

Well, thanks, Joe. I appreciate the invite to be here. Okay, so let's get that thing out of the way first that everyone's going to be wondering about. Wondering about the harmonies. Who were the harmonies? What did they do? What did you do in the band? Well, you know, that was a long time ago. Joe the harmoniers was a polka band that was started by my father. And when I was in college, I was going to school in Philadelphia, but I decided to come home on weekends and sing with the band to earn money to go through college. So I thought, Okay, I'll do this for four years. But I had such a great time that I ended up doing it for another nine years until my father passed away. But it was a polka band, so we did primarily weddings and church picnics and occasionally dances. So much fun. I had a blast doing it. Okay, so at the next zone conference, we're going to book the Harmon ears.

joe solway: 2:36

So you say that was a long time ago, but something else was a long time ago, and that was 1991 you joined Rotary. And so you've been a Rotarian for over 30 years. I guess it's 33 years now. 33 what has kept you in it? Because you know, so many people go that's it. I've had enough like I'm leaving you. And so you must have had some moments, but you've probably had a lot of moments where you got a regular satisfaction. So What's kept you in it for 33 years? Well,

Stephanie Urchick: 3:05

honestly, I didn't join rotary to serve. I joined rotary for fellowship. I was looking I was looking for friends, actually, because I had become divorced. And you know, when you're married, you do married stuff together, you shop together, you vacation together. You go to rotary events together. Well, I didn't have that anymore, so when I got an invitation from a work colleague to go to a rotary meeting, I thought, well, yeah, it sounds interesting. I'm going to go. And originally it was fellowship that took me to rotary but as I got involved in rotary service, it's been the service that keeps me there. You know, every time I work on behalf of somebody and and become part of changing lives for people, I get that psychic income, you know, that feeling that makes us feel good, and that's what keeps me here.

joe solway: 3:58

It was a far different Rotary Club, probably, than you would find today. In 1991 women had just be allowed become

Stephanie Urchick: 4:08

a rotary or my rotary club, there was already a female member. So it really, it didn't seem like an issue for me. I just looked at, you know, the areas of service that that this club was focused on. And, you know, it was really an active club. We did international projects, we did Youth Exchange, we had group study exchange back then. And this was a club that was involved in all of that. So I didn't really look at the gender thing in a way that would, you know, put it on display. I was just, I was a Rotarian like everybody else in the club, and you

joe solway: 4:52

became active really quickly. I let you think that every Rotarian as like a passion for. Jack, did you find one like right away? I

Stephanie Urchick: 5:03

certainly did. The very first, very first thing I worked on in my club was, Oh, I think maybe, I don't know, a month or two I was in the club, and the President stood up one day and said, Well, you know, we have youth exchange students who are going to arrive, and we need another host family, and we need this. And I'm thinking, I can't be a host family. You know, I'm not married, I don't have children, but he talked about needing somebody to go to the airport to pick up the students. And I thought, well, I can do that. So mind you, I was in the Rotary Club of California. Pa. I worked at California University of PA. Both of these are located in western Pennsylvania. There's no body of water close to us. So I said, Okay, I'll go pick up the students. So I went to the airport. There were three students. One was ours for our club, and he was from Thailand, and there were two others who were going to be in local, local clubs. So I picked them all up. They had their luggage, and the young man from Thailand said, Stephanie, we have to go to oversized luggage. And I thought, okay, so we go to the oversized luggage, and down the chute comes this surfboard. And I looked at him and said, What are you planning to do with that? And he said, I'm going to California University. So my very first service project was basic education. I had to give him a lesson in geography. That's hilarious. There's no body of water so, but he laughed it off. And, you know, he learned a lot with us during that year, but that was his first lesson. It was

joe solway: 6:46

great. That's fantastic. You also had a very special member, Chuck Keller. Yes, I was reading a little bit about him. Tell me about him.

Stephanie Urchick: 6:56

Well, I didn't know about Chuck until, of course, I went to the first meeting, and I sat next to him, and I found out that he was a past president of Rotary International. Well, how lucky was I as a new member to have a rotary godfather? You know? Because often the President, as happens in many clubs, the President would stand up and say, well, the DG is coming after CLL, but before Rila. And I'd look at Chuck, and I'd say, Chuck, what the heck are they talking about? And he was so very patient with me, and he'd explain, Col is our council on legislation, and RYLA Is Our Youth Leadership Awards Program. He'd talk about all of it, and I was fortunate to be in the club with him for 10 years before I had to move to another one. And it was, it was wonderful. It was having a rotary Godfather that entire time.

joe solway: 7:50

What did you learn from me?

Stephanie Urchick: 7:52

Um, you know, the more I got to know Chuck, the more I had an appreciation for his year of service and how dedicated he was to peace. And you know that that's also something that's on the radar screen for us in 2425 and so just a lot of things about leadership in general and rotary in particular. So a lot of the rotary depths comes from conversations and chats that I had with Chuck.

joe solway: 8:24

You passed away in 2018 Yes, you wrote about it.

Stephanie Urchick: 8:28

I did, Then.

joe solway: 8:30

what do you think he'd make of your rise to, you know, become president elect?

Stephanie Urchick: 8:36

Well, I think he's looking down from heaven and he's smiling and probably saying, You go, girl, very

joe solway: 8:42

nice. He walked you down an aisle once,

Stephanie Urchick: 8:46

You know he did, because, because I'm a single Rotarian. When we were introduced at this the zone Institute where Governor elects were doing their training, it was a tradition in the zone to have someone walk you in to the meeting room. And because I didn't have a partner, Chuck said, I'm walking you in. So yeah, it's absolutely true. He was the person who introduced me, if you will, to the zone during my training.

joe solway: 9:22

I love these stories. That's that's such a great story. I want to jump ahead. You're now a member of the McMurray Rotary Club, yes, itself as the fastest growing club in the Pittsburgh area. Tell me about the McMurray club and why it's growing.

Stephanie Urchick: 9:41

Well, about two years ago, we took a critical look at ourselves, and we couldn't figure it out. You know, we weren't growing. We were hovering around 30 430-433-3534, we couldn't figure out, why aren't we growing? So we did a couple of things. First of all, we did a club assessment. Okay, and we asked people about our meetings, and you know, are we meeting the right day, the right time, right and it occurred to us, after looking at the survey results, maybe we weren't meeting at the right time. We were a noon club, and we're a fairly large community. Well, who are we missing? We couldn't get teachers, we couldn't get medical professionals who had patients. We couldn't get retailers who had customers. I mean, there's a whole, whole group of people that couldn't belong to our club simply because of when we met. So we said, okay, let's change. Let's become a morning club. And we did instantly, the very next week, we gained two members, and so we didn't stop there. We decided we needed to talk to some other groups and find out more about, you know, the community and people. So we talked to our local Chamber of Commerce, and we had a group in our county of young professionals called Leadership Washington County. So we talked to that group, and we talked to our interactors, and it became very clear that there were people in our community who wanted to serve they just didn't want to come to meetings. Well, ding, ding, ding, there is something that we can do about that. It's called satellite. There is a model in our satellite group called impact, and that's for people who want to do exactly that, who want to serve, but they don't want to go to meetings. So we organized a couple of informational gatherings, and we got you know people together. And so there is an impact group in McMurray, and it is a satellite of our club. These people go out twice a month. They do service in the community. Sometimes they go to the food bank. Sometimes they go to the senior centers. They figure out what service they want to do, and then if they want to go and have, you know, pizza or beverage, they do that. But we recognize that because they're not going to meetings, they're not learning about Rotary. So every eight weeks or so we have, we call it PBR, pizza, beer and rotary night and two, only two Rotarians from the host club go, and the rest are the impact members, and we talk about rotary so that they can begin to learn. But why I tell that story is because on the first night, the first night that we did an induction, because we've had more now, the first night, we went from being a club of 34 to a club of 58 in one night. Now, you know, you think about how hard and difficult it is to get new people into our traditional clubs, or in an impact club. They're creating a culture from the get go, so they don't have to fit into any kind of culture that already exists in a traditional club. And I'm not suggesting that traditional clubs are going to what go away. They're not. I'm never going to leave my traditional club. I love it. You know, these are all my friends, but we got excited as the traditional club because we're mentors now to this new group, and they're excited because they're doing service and they're doing it their way. And so it keeps attracting members. We've had two inductions since that original one, so we continue to grow, and that's why we're calling ourselves the fastest growing club in the Pittsburgh market.

joe solway: 13:30

So were these satellite clubs? Are the members of these satellite clubs, actual members of your club? Man, they

Stephanie Urchick: 13:36

are okay, and they're paying full rotary dues, club dues and district dues and rotary dues. We didn't discount anything, and they're happy to pay it because this is how they want to do service.

joe solway: 13:51

Is this part of what you talk about when you talk about making your club irresistible? Because that's kind of your theme coming up, and actually, that's the theme of our of our district conference that we're going to be doing in the fall. Explain that term then and how you get there. Well, simply

Stephanie Urchick: 14:10

Irresistible is a term that I use because there's emotion in that word irresistible. And you know when, when you think about the number of clubs that we have that, you know, sometimes they say, Well, you know, we have 100 members, but only 20 come to our meetings. Well, there's a reason for that. They're not finding value. They're not finding it to be how they want to spend their time. So it really is a wake up call for that club to take a look at itself and say, What can we do a little better we might be good at something. How can we get great? Or maybe we're not so good at something? How can we get better? What are the things that are going to make a difference for people who are in our club but aren't coming here? So it's about a little bit, maybe a culture shift now. Not a great big shift, but a little bit because our traditional clubs, as I mentioned before, brought us to the table. They're not going to go away, but there are ways for them to to to look at themselves and maybe create something a little bit different, and that's how we can attract people. The other thing that happens is we want traditional clubs to look at retention and engagement. I mean, if people aren't engaged in what's happening in the club, they're not going to come they're not going to come to the meetings. They're not going to come to the events. We have a product in Rotary, and that's the club experience and the club events that we put on. So when we work to make them different. If we create an irresistible club experience, then people will be attracted to it, and the people who are in the club aren't going to want to leave, necessarily, because they're having such a great time. There is some attrition that we can't stop, and every club has that, and that's the attrition that happens when people pass away or people move or get new jobs. We can't stop that, but we can stop the attrition for people who simply stop coming because they don't find value in what's going on. So the way to find value for people who are existing members is to do like as mentioned, do club surveys. Should do them annually and find out what's important here. What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? Joe, do you remember, do you remember the mayor in New York by the name of Ed Koch? Sure. He Yep. He used to walk around and say, How am I doing? How am I doing? How am I doing? He'd say that in supermarkets and in the subway, and he was trying to get instant feedback on his performance. As Rotary Clubs, we should be doing the same thing at least annually. How are we doing? How are we doing? Are things the way they should be? And when you do surveys, you'll get information from your members. And you can use some of it. Maybe you can't use some of it, but the fact that you gave people an opportunity to be heard is what creates the buy in. So then when you do talk about making some little changes to become more irresistible, people are going to say, okay, that makes sense. All right. And if people are coming into your club, you want to do entrance interviews, you want to talk to them and say, tell us what you'd like to do, don't, don't wait for when they're leaving and then say, oh, we'll do an exit interview. That's a really stupid time to talk to people. They've already made their mind up that they're leaving.

joe solway: 17:31

you might have, you know, there might be something that is really important to them, but is a change that maybe I don't know should be made. Sometimes taking a look at your club can be can be hard. You know, in terms of when we have the membership, we should Right,?

Stephanie Urchick: 17:56

Right? But that's the only way we can figure out if we need to do something differently, by asking our club members, you know, what do you think about this? What do you think about the day we meet? What do you think about what we do as projects? Are there other things that we should be doing? Oh, you're interested in the environment. How could that work for us here in this community, what should we be doing?

Rotary Ad: 18:18

Possibilities are all around us. We see potential in unexpected places, and when we share our knowledge, vision and connections, we turn great ideas into action. Together, we can make real change happen. We are rotary org action. Get involved today at Rotary org action.

joe solway: 18:46

One of the things that I really like about, I think you said in a I've seen it in print, and I would just say it at a Zoom meeting that we had, was that you really like the word yes and and and it always kind of, I'm always kind of mystified, like, when clubs stress the responsibilities and the obligations and they don't stress the opportunities that can be here. I'm I'm sermonizing. I shouldn't. I used to be the one doing this. But you know what I mean, like, there's so many opportunities if you say yes. And I think that, you know, if, like, how do you make that happen in your club? I guess it's a personal thing, isn't it? You have to just look at the opportunities or or you when you bring people in, you stress the opportunities, rather than, you know, the obligations and the responsibilities. And you know, right? Do I really want to join? I joined a club because I want to serve. I don't join a club because, you know, I want obligations. Anyway, sorry, I stole your offender. That's

Stephanie Urchick: 19:49

okay. And I think it's important for us to then talk about the end result, like, what happened when we served? Like, what's the story behind all the serve? Us that we did. Because I think that's what gets people intrigued, if they all know that. You know that? Yeah, we can. We can. We can assume roles in our club, and, you know, we can jump on the bandwagon and do this and do that, but when we talk about what it meant to us and what it meant to the beneficiaries, I think that's where we really can capture people by telling, by telling a story.

joe solway: 20:23

and what you What's kept you in for 33 years? Certainly, it's not, you know, the meetings, you know, it's the it's the service that you've been able to do, I'm sure, of course. So one of the things that you don't you have done in your rotary career is to work internationally. You've done rotary service in India, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Ukraine, Poland. Stop me if I missed anything. Is there, if I missed any of those places?

Stephanie Urchick: 20:52

Well, yeah, lots of other but that's okay.

joe solway: 20:54

So a huge question. I'm always fascinated and a little envious about this, is there an image that you have that sticks? And I'm sure you have many, but what's the maybe the most powerful, long lasting image you have of all the international work you've done?

Stephanie Urchick: 21:14

So that's like asking somebody who's their favorite child. I think every, every, every experience leaves you with something special. You know, one, for instance, that led to the theme the magic of rotary was my experience in the Dominican Republic. I was there to install water filters. My district had gone down to engage in, you know, putting together bio sand filters so that families could have clean water. So we I was in a Haitian home, and we were putting the water filter together, and there were two women, a grandmother and a mother, and there were three little boys. And so the little boys were watching, and we put dirty water in the filter, and it would come out clean. And we put dirty water, it would come out clean. And when we stopped doing that, one of the little boys came over, and he grabbed my sleeve, and he said, lady, lady, show me that magic again. Well, clearly the water filter wasn't magic. You know, we worked hard to get the filters and take them there, but to him, it was magic. What was magic was what was going to happen to that family now they had access to clean water, that little boy could go back to school and get an education and, you know, become trained and skilled. And so we all have stories like that. No matter what we've done in Rotary, whether it's been something locally or something internationally, I think everybody can think about an experience they had where they saw that magic. They were creating change, lasting change, in somebody's life.

joe solway: 22:53

How'd that make you feel when you were able to give that family water?

Stephanie Urchick: 22:58

Well, I would it was one of those, those moments of psychic income. I was like, wow, I played a part in this. You know, I'm changing, like, creating lasting change for this family, and it was such a simple way to do it. But for them, whoa, it meant, it meant the world as

joe solway: 23:15

you're as you're describing this. I'm thinking that this wouldn't have been possible without Rotary, but it wouldn't have been possible for rotary to do it without you, you know. So, I mean, we're individuals, but we have this incredible organization. ,

Stephanie Urchick: 23:31

Absolutely, absolutely Rotary lets us do magic in the world. So, you're right. It's a vehicle.

joe solway: 23:38

That's a good line. Do magic in the world. Do magic right there.

Mandy Kwasnica: 23:44

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joe solway: 24:16

so on July 1, you're going to become ri president, you have talked a lot before and now about being one of the only single people to hold that office. Why is that significant to you?

Stephanie Urchick: 24:31

Well, it's only significant in that I recognize that there are a lot of other Rotarians in service who who are single, who don't have a partner. And one of the things about a great organization is that we want people to see others who look like them. So from that perspective, I'm I share that information only so that other people who are single understand. That if you have the heart and the hands for service, and you happen to be single, there's a place for you in rotary leadership.

joe solway: 25:08

and you're, you're in rotary leadership, but you're also a member of your club. I don't know how active you can be in your club now, now that you're, you know, President Elect of worldwide organization with 1.4 million members. Do you miss it? I mean, you're still able to be active locally,

Stephanie Urchick: 25:30

not as active as I'd like to be. When I do get back to the Pittsburgh area, I do go to my club meetings, and I do mentor from a distance, so I'm in contact with the current club president frequently through email or other, you know, WhatsApp and, you know, give him some suggestions, or he'll run ideas by me and say, What do you think? So, from a distance, I am doing some mentoring, but you're right. No, I'm not physically there, so I can't participate in some of the fun things that they do for service or socials, but I get back when I can, that's nice.

joe solway: 26:08

What do you think? Maybe this is a premature question, but what do you think? What do you think you're going to consider as success in your term? Kind of a big, vague question.

Stephanie Urchick: 26:21

Yeah for me, it's going to be a turnaround in membership in North America, I don't think we're going to see a turnaround in membership worldwide, because there are certain things happening worldwide that are going to affect our membership in the immediate future. One of them is we have a concerted effort through our rotary senior leaders in certain parts of the world where there have developed phantom clubs. These clubs don't really exist, but people are buying phantom clubs. Yep, yep, they're people are buying. They're paying for rotary membership and organizing a club so that they can become elected to become district governor. I mean, crazy things like that. So we're we're doing a push. We're really pruning. We're really trying to get rid of those things that don't belong in Rotary. So I think that's going to affect our our overall membership worldwide, but in North America, we are positioned with our innovative club advocates. You know, all of the movement that we have in helping people to understand the action plan and to use the priorities of expanding our reach and improving our engagement, those two right there are going to really impact attraction and retention. So I think we're positioned in North America to make a change and to see something different happen in terms of membership. That makes me really happy, because I don't want rotary to go away. No, I

joe solway: 27:57

you know one, bit of heartening news you might and this is simply anecdotal. I mean, it comes from me. I for our district. I I feel the Ri candidates that come through to our district from ri through the website, and at least half of them in the past few months have been under 30. Fabulous, yeah, wanting to serve like you know, the reason for wanting to join. They say, I want to serve my community, and so many of them, and that's really heartening, you know, whether or not they join rotary or Rotaract, I mean, to bring them into the rotary family is really heartening, you know? And we do need those new ideas, so I think that's wonderful. We have a few seconds left. I'm going to throw this at you, okay? I hope you're prepared for it. You speak a number of Slavic languages.

Stephanie Urchick: 28:45

Well, I used to, you're used, okay, yeah,

joe solway: 28:50

maybe if you speak one, can you leave us something good, maybe a phrase in one of those Slavic languages about Rotary, I don't know service. I love Rotary, something. Well,

Stephanie Urchick: 29:04

the magic of Rotary in Polish would be Magia rotazzi. And if you wanted to say service above self, that would be shoes, baponan shibia. So that's, yeah, that's what I can say in Polish. So in other languages, the magic of Rotary, org action, let's see magia Rotary, because rotary doesn't translate into another. So it would be pretty much similar in all those languages, wonderful.

joe solway: 29:42

Well, you know, it's great that you have a working knowledge of so many languages, and you've been to so many places, yet, you know, having spent a little time with you in at a conference, I know you're really down to earth. So I think you bring a lot of you have so much to offer as the president of an organization. Like, Alright, I'm looking forward to it. Absolutely.

Stephanie Urchick: 30:05

I'm looking forward to it, and I'm going to have 1.4 million people helping me, the family of rotary

joe solway: 30:12

Okay, well, thank you for thank you for your service for 33 years, and good luck.

Stephanie Urchick: 30:18

All right. Thanks, Joe. Bye, now bye now.

Mandy Kwasnica: 30:36

Thank you so much for joining us on another great episode of talking Rotary, we would love to hear from you. Please send us your comments and story ideas, and you can share with us easily by sending us an email at feedback at talking Rotary, org, action rotary or