INTERESTED IN SPEAKING TO OUR CLUB?

Thank you for your interest in volunteering to speak to the Rotary Club of San Jose.

The Rotary Club of San Jose has 440 members, making it one of the largest Rotary clubs in the United States. It is composed of prominent businessmen and women, professional educators, arts, government and community leaders in Silicon Valley. We frequently have the media present at our luncheons, in addition to a dozen or so Rotary members who hold prominent positions in the Santa Clara County print and electronic media, including the San Jose Mercury News, Metro (Publisher), and KLIV News Radio (owner), a radio station which frequently broadcasts recordings of the weekly speeches. Our Wednesday buffet luncheons at the new Rotary Summit Center in downtown San Jose frequently draw 250-300 members.

Because we are a big club, we receive far more requests than we can accept. Typically speakers are the national or state leaders of their organizations. For example, the President of a national youth organization recently addressed the club, even though the local Executive Director, and fellow Rotarian, had not spoken to the Club. Typically we book at least 2-3 months out. Previous speakers have included two U. S. Presidents, a Speaker of the US House of Representatives, a Canadian Prime Minister, three California Governors, U. S. Senators and members of Congress and a number of noted personalities and public officials, including Ed Asner, ,John Chiang, Bill Lockyer, Norm Mineta, General Barry McCaffrey (USA-Retired), Gavin Newsom, Michael Powell, Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, Linda Ronstadt,Ted Turner and Peter Ueberroth.

Our program committee meets the second Tuesday of every month to review prospective speakers. The nomination for speakers which have been most successful have typically provided brief information about the speaker, and details about the proposed speech, by email, no later than the first Tuesday of each month.

Most importantly, we are interested in a speaker’s track record as an inspiring, informative and entertaining speaker and whether or not a Rotarian has heard them speak. If the speaker is planning to speak locally in the near future let us know that as well, since program committee members will sometimes attend and report back to the Committee. Also it is useful to let us know if they have presentations available online.

Finally selection is based upon many factors, including whether or not the speaker is addressing a topic that has recently been discussed, timeliness, and schedule availability.

Again, thank you for your interest. We look forward to hearing from you. Please send speaker information to Programs@sjrotary.org.