PH Rotary Holds First Ever “Community Speaker Series”

Historically, Rotary clubs have invited outside speakers to present to their membership during their regular club meetings. And while this method may still work for some clubs, our organization was looking to reimagine the speaker concept and evolve it to meet the needs of a modern, growing club.

Penn Hills Rotary is an extremely active group. Our biweekly meetings are used to plan the next big community event/project, which usually isn’t too far off. What we found is that sometimes, not all members are interested in what a specific speaker had to offer. In addition, a guest speaker talking about a random subject is hard to explain to new, prospective members who may also be attending that meeting. So we sought out to create a different type of experience that would prioritize the purpose of our meetings, yet still allow meaningful guest speakers to present to Rotary.

Our solution is what we call the Community Speaker Series, where we select the speaker(s) and open the event to the community. This allows the public to enjoy a night out hearing from relevant individuals or groups, grab a small bite to eat provided by our club, and most importantly, it exposes the general public to Rotary. We intend to hold this series quarterly.

Penn Hills Rotary’s first Community Speaker Series was held on Thursday. February 23rd, where we hosted Senator Jay Costa and County Councilman Nick Futules. The event lasted two hours, and was attended by 57 people - half of which had not been to a Rotary event previously. We provided charcuterie boards, dessert, and drinks at a local fire hall. The elected officials both did a presentation on current happenings in their districts, and then took questions from the audience. It was well-received, and we believe we will build on this for the next iteration of the series, all while continuing to expose Rotary to the community.