Helping out
The modern world is often characterised as a "me" world where "self" is more important than "group". 
 
Our guest speaker on Monday night, Salvation Army's Major Ian Kilgour, presented a much different world view. 
"A society is just when it demonstrates values that enhance life for all." 
With values that include service, community, social investment, social capital and social inclusion the overlap with what Rotary as an organisation stands for was clear. 
The challenge of course, in what feels like an increasingly divided and divisive world, is to ensure those values are to the forefront of how we think and act.
 
As Mahatma Gandhi said: “the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
 
Calendar
Pakuranga Rotary Changeover - 20 June 2022
The Howick Club
Jun 20, 2022
5:30 PM – 7:45 PM
 
World Friendship Day
Jul 30, 2022
 
Rotary Membership and Development Month
Aug 01, 2022 - Aug 31, 2022
 
International Youth Day
Aug 12, 2022
 
View entire list
Scribes Report
 
About thirty Rotarians and guests had the privilege of hearing retired Major Ian Kilgour talk of his early connections and later responsibilities with the Salvation Army.
If the SA can be called a Christian gang, this young prospect was challenged with living on the streets of Sydney, unaided, for a three month exposure to the world of the ‘down and outs'. After many harrowing experiences he found three weeks was enough but the lessons learned were to shape his interests and actions for the remainder of his working life – which is on-going.
 
Hearing of the work of the SA in today’s troubled society was very uplifting as is their goal to restore needy people to dignity and self-respect.  This is achieved through their many programmes which include combatting addictions, providing budgetary advice, and building new village complexes such as that in Flat Bush. 
 
Ian has had huge input into the Salvation Army’s annual reports on NZ’s social condition – a kind of non-partisan pulse of the nation statement – the contents of which can be both approving and condemnatory of government’s action or inaction in matters of social policy. He has been very much at the cutting edge of the mountain of need, the likes of which most of us would never encounter.
 
In the current political climate it was telling to have the principles of restoration and revival given priority and the rejection of retribution as a way of dealing with society’s ills.
Dictionaries and Books
 
 
It has been a busy few weeks for the dictionary project. 
 
 
 
 
 
On behalf of Pakuranga Rotary, Maureen Kearns & Julie Barnes from the Howick Inner Wheel Club presented the Usborne Illustrated English Dictionaries to the Year 4 students of St Patricks School in Panmure. The students were delighted to receive the gift of the dictionaries as explained by their teacher, Justine Agnew in her comments as follows:
“The children have completed their draft letters to Maureen, Julie and Rotary Pakuranga and the final copies should be in the mail this coming week. They have already had a lot of joy and excitement looking up the meanings of new words and sharing their findings with one another. They really do cherish their new dictionaries. The extra four dictionaries have been given to the Librarian for her to access into the Library system and Pakuranga Rotary details have been added.”
 
This was followed soon after when 38 Year 5 and 6 Riverhills Primary pupils were presented with the  Rotary sponsored illustrated dictionaries.  
 
At the special assembly, after a well delivered waiata by the pupils,  Peter Woodcock spoke about the Dictionary project and the initiative taken by Bill Boyd after his term as Rotary World President. He also stressed the power of words and suggested pupils could become experts on a programme like The Chase if they took the time to study their new book.
 
Pupils wrote their names into the inside cover and immediately checked them out when seated. After the presentation a pupil gave a heartfelt and well constructed speech of thanks which was much appreciated.  Students from a secondary school then facilitated a brief session in small groups on ways to use the dictionary to best effect. All pupils were obviously delighted with the gift from Pakuranga Rotary and Peter was impressed with their courtesy and interest.
 
Another pleasing chapter to the Bill & Lorna Boyd Charitable Trust’s literacy objectives.
 
 
 
 
It was also a month when the Duffy Books program was at work.  The Rae and Ernie Johnston Memorial Trust combined with the Ellerslie Rotary Club to purchase  and present Duffy Books to the children of Panmure District School.
 
 
 
A chance to donate
"Clean for a Cause" is an initiative aimed at providing Kiwi kids and families in need, preloved shoes donated by the community. 
 
Shoes that are donated are given a full premium clean by Sneaker Clean NZ, are repackaged in a custom box and will be sent out to children via their schools. 
They already have the names of over 1000 children from neighbourhoods who could be positively touched by this cause. 
They are accepting donations of all sized pairs of shoes that are still in wearable condition. 
 
Raewyn Kavanagh will be co-ordinating this for the club and more details on how you can donate will be available soo. 
Kiwi Harvest - an opportunity to help
We are from KiwiHarvest in Highbrook.
 
KiwiHarvest is New Zealand’s largest food rescue social venture. We collect excess food that is good enough to eat, yet won’t sell, and distribute it to front line agencies providing food support to our most vulnerable communities. KiwiHarvest rescues up to 200,000 kilos of food every month, the equivalent of 571,428 meals.
We would love to know if you have any members who would be interested in volunteering with us. We have two types of volunteering – food sorting and food rescue driver assistant.
 
Food sorting: Help our teams pack and sort rescued food at our branch DCs into manageable sized boxes/ bags. This packed food then gets delivered out to our recipient charity organisations, working on the frontline to feed our most vulnerable. This is a physical activity that requires the ability to lift and move boxes of up to 15kgs, as well as staying on your feet for long periods of time.
 
Driver Assistant: Our drivers are out on the road every day rescuing food and delivering it across the regions. Volunteer Driver Assistants help our Drivers with this task and get a first-hand look at the type of food we rescue and the communities we are helping to support.
If you would like to know more feel free to reach out, also here is a link to our website https://www.kiwiharvest.org.nz/volunteer We look forward to hearing from you 😊
Sculpture Project Update. 
As is often the case with art, final completion dates can be a little fluid. However we can take heart from the the latest update from Terry, from the Auckland Council  who is overseeing  the work. 

 
- Fabrication continues albeit Dion has succumbed to Covid.
- The work on the foundation is underway. This is not a small artwork which also have moving parts so a solid foundation is required. 
- Council has approved an increase in the overall budget. That does not impact on our contribution which is fixed. 
- Preparatory work is underway re the Opening. 
 
 
 
Kelvin says "Be assured the 50th Anniversary Committee is pushing , like the Blues Scrum will, to reach the magical completion date."
Clearly he made this bold prediction before the game and we can all hope his predictions for the sculpture are more accurate than his predictions for the game. 
[And thats without mentioning the line-out.]