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Australia/Asia
BNI HAPPENINGS — New Zealand
60-Second Roll Playing
A week prior to this meeting each member had drawn a name out of a hat and was required to have a "dance" with that member so he could represent her for the 60-second presentation the following week. Some members went to outlandish extremes for the 60-second presentations. Sheryl Oliver of Oliver Hair Design dressed as a man—including masculine makeup and a hair-streaking cap to represent the balding head of our risk management specialist, Tony Randell, whom she was representing. Chapter president Brett Hansen, who portrayed Annette Eksteen of the Old Villa Dental Centre, included props such as gloves, facemask and a huge toothbrush. The idea was a great way to introduce a bit of light heartedness to the meeting, although extra time was required to allow for the jibes and bantering! Encouraging members to dance with one another is very important so that when you are referring a member to an associate, you actually know about him and his business. So everyone, who are you going to be next week? A Recipe to Grow Your Chapter's Numbers When the new Leadership Team of the Tauranga, New Zealand, chapter came on board, they decided to approach the task as if it were a new business and plan accordingly. The team got together to decide upon their main goals and what they wanted to achieve during their leadership tenure. One goal was to grow the chapter from its fluctuating 15-20 members to 30. Another goal was to encourage members to complete dances with one another. They also wanted meetings to be stimulating by adding variety. A "business plan" was drawn up, setting out what had to be done to encourage members to help the team achieve their goals. Ideas included brainstorming as to whom and what profession each member would like as part of the group to help grow their business; where these people might be found and who might know them, etc. From this, a comprehensive list of potential new members was drawn up. A Visitors Day was scheduled and invitations were mailed and followed up with personal phone calls. The response was amazing. After the Visitors Day, all potential new members were asked to join. The team had managed to grow the chapter by 75 percent. By the end of the current leadership team's term they had 28 members—not quite the 30 they were hoping for but definitely better numbers than they had started with. Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty area is one of the fastest growing regions in New Zealand, but the chapter has always struggled to recruit and retain members. Members had found they have been so busy over the last few years that people have not had to look hard to find business. The current members of the Tauranga chapter are all good strong people that were able to look past being busy now to plan for future expansion. Well done! BNI HAPPENINGS — Australia Hawthorn Chapter Member Aims to Stage Musical
However, Susan Cliff, a member of the Hawthorn chapter, has taken her BNI experience to a whole new level by leveraging the skills of her group to pursue a long-standing ambition: to stage an Australian musical during the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006. It all started with a dance card in 2002 and has steadily progressed to the point where Susan—who runs the interior design business, Welcome Home Dimensions—was able to stage special performances of her musical, "Space Harmonic," in front of more than 100 guests during June. Among the guests were many BNI members, who have assisted Susan along the way in a wide range of areas, from brochure design through to legal support on her trademark registration. Another BNI member has also helped Susan with contacts in local and state government to raise the profile of the musical. Again leveraging the power of BNI, Susan decided to use her 10-minute group presentation as a pre-rehearsal for the stage performances she put on during June to gauge as much feedback as possible. "I would never had pushed the musical forward without my involvement with BNI," says Susan. "I'm just over-awed by the fact that it has come forward so quickly, and my BNI peers have given me the confidence to take it to rehearsal stage. I've got all the expert people around me to take it forward." Susan says she is aiming to have "Space Harmonic" running as entertainment behind the Commonwealth Games because it relates to Australia. Through song and dance the musical explores music, color, imagery, technology, the changing nature of our lifestyle and environment. The focus is on how we live now and how we will live in another thirty years. "It shows what a fantastic country Australia is, how spiritual it is and how clever we are that we can use technology to such an extent. Instead of all this gloom and doom, it's embracing change and saying that the future is exciting," says Susan. For more information on "Space Harmonic," contact Susan Cliff at 0408 144 637. Melbourne Chapter Packs House on Visitor's Day Building chapter numbers is a key objective for BNI. The Melbourne chapter held a highly successful Visitors Day on July 20, with more than 40 visitors attending and many showing strong interest in joining. "We had a full house with 42 seats taken, so everyone deserves a big pat on the back as it was a huge team effort," said Melbourne chapter President, Frank Valentic. "Hopefully, we can convert many of the visitors into members and really take our excellent group to the next level. "We handed out quite a few applications and the feedback from many of the visitors I chatted to was that they were really keen and that they really enjoyed the meeting." BNI Directors Take A High-Profile Role
BNI's Melbourne team of directors take a high profile within the organization—and deservedly so. In addition to their ongoing involvement as chapter members, generating business referrals for their peers as we all do, the directors are constantly working behind the scenes to ensure all processes are working as they should be for the benefit of all members. The director's team (pictured) meets monthly to discuss planning issues for BNI, including progress reports on individual chapters, and to determine growth plans for the opening of new chapters. Since David Byers and Graham Southwell took over BNI Melbourne on March 1, six new directors have been added and the roles have been split. "Directors have changed from being there to maintain the chapters to helping the chapters grow," says David. "Their focus is now on helping chapters with Visitors Days, helping make visitors stick and making sure that members are aware of the education opportunities that are available through BNI. We're putting a big focus on making sure chapters know what they have to do to operate successfully so they don't have to bounce every query back to the director and so the director is there to support the chapter, not to run the chapter. "Some of the directors are only starting chapters and some of the new directors are just managing chapters. There's a different skill required for both of those areas so it seemed to make sense to us to get people that were specialized in a particular role." BNI HAPPENINGS — Malaysia Malaysian Chapters Hold Many World Titles
Malaysia is proud to announce that Malaysian chapters can be some of the best in the world! Uptown Chapter, at its second anniversary in May, was the first chapter this year to cross the "40 member" threshold. The chapter had 23 members at the beginning of the year. Since inducting new member, Vincent Koay, to the chapter, a new benchmark has been set as to what can be achieved in BNI Malaysia. Vincent became the first Gold Club Member in Malaysia to bring six new members into the chapter within two months of joining, and sponsored eighteen new members in less than five months. Vincent's success has erased the old notion of it being difficult to invite visitors and has opened up the possibility of larger chapters in Malaysia. Since January, the number of referrals in Uptown chapter has steadily increased from about 100 to 220 per month. By July, the second chapter, Ampang chapter, Founder's Award 2003, also reached 40 members. Four other chapters have over 35 members and are on the way to achieving their chapter's goal of 40 by end of the year: Achievers chapter in Penang, Bangsar chapter and Affinity chapter in Klang Valley and City chapter in Johor. Malaysia is also planning to launch some big chapters. Affinity chapter, with over 35 members after launch, set a new benchmark for the launching of new chapters. Car Mechanic Proud to be BNI Member
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