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In front of a smartly turned out group of about 55 Rotarians, partners and guests (including the in-coming District Governor Allan Smith and his wife Sue) another Rotary year for the Pakuranga Club ended this week as now Past-President Allan Vester handed over his weighty chain of office to our new President Mike Collins.
It was both a sad and happy occasion - sad as we held a minute’s silence to acknowledge the sudden passing of Gail Taylor, wife of a stalwart member Peter. Sad too as we said farewell to Richard Purchase, a member since 1987, Past President and a reliable supporter of every project we ever embarked on. He will be sorely missed.
On the happy side, Allan gave his sincere thanks to his outgoing Board, acknowledging the sterling work done by them in trying times and giving special recognition to Ian Handisides with the President’s Cup.
Duncan Loney gave an amusing introduction to Mike, the new President, albeit after the actual induction (read the programme Mike!).
Customary exchange of flowers for wives Bernadine and Kim and badges for the top brass got most of the formalities out of the way before Mike Spoke briefly and sincerely about his vision for the coming year. Based on the new Rotary theme ‘Imagine Rotary’ Mike outline his imaginings – of a club that was prepared to pick up on projects and tried ways of doing things from the past as well as venturing into new fields such as full use of social media and other means to attract new and younger members. He imagined a club with greater ethnic diversity and more women members and called on all present to see their own family members as well as acquaintances as prospects for the future. As a past award-winning magician Mike may be expected to spin new spells, conjure up some surprising rabbits out of the hat and not harm anyone he may wish to saw in half! He introduced his incoming board – plus a number of add-on co-opted members with special tasks e.g bulletin (Allan V.), Fundraising (Alan D.), Speakers (Peter T.), Sergeant (Duncan – who advised members that fines would not be in cash anymore but added to the dinner fee the following week), Functions (Ian), IT (Peter A), Club liaison (Peter J.). General feeling was that the club continued to be in sound hands.
Guest speaker – none other than Maurice Williamson – past honorary member of the club recently returned to NZ from his US-based diplomatic posting in Santa Monica L.A.
In his familiar ebullient style, laced with humorous anecdotes and a dazzling display of statistical information and eschewing the need for a micro-phone, Maurice entertained all with a fascinating insight into the joys and despairs of his time in L.A. after some shameless name-dropping of people he’d had dealings with in the past (including Putin and Arnold Schwarzeneger!).
With far too much detail to include in a bulletin report, Maurice highlighted the extent of the US financial deficit – equivalent to the combined GDP of China, Japan, Germany and the UK! He also detailed the wealth of California which, if a country, would be the fifth richest in the world – yet slides of the scenes in LA’s skid row would seem to negate the significance of this. He spoke of the Covid situation with comparisons to NZ and then revealed that 100 people die per day from gunshots and that US citizens own nearly half of the world’s small arms. Frightening stuff!
His final message was closer to home with a damning revelation of the financial state of Auckland City Council – formed in 2010 to reduce duplication of services and administration costs. Debt per household has increased from $11K to about $30K in the 12 years since the amalgamation. His plea was for all to take the trouble to vote in the forthcoming local body election – or stop complaining!
The shell-shocked audience gave Maurice a hearty round of applause, leaving with much to think about. The results of the local body elections in East Auckland will no doubt be watched with extra interest with Maurice among the choices for Council membership available.
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