Govind began his address by naming the members of the incoming Board and those other members who will be playing key roles in the club in the coming year.
[See Story Content for the details].
He then went on to outline his plans for the upcoming year.
"I want to make this year a fun year and a very inclusive year and as we always do, focus on our core objective which is serving our community through Rotary"
Causes we hope to support
In keeping with the RI Presidents Gordon Mclnally’s theme of Creating Hope in the world we will support and continue to support :
- St.John Ambulance
- Life education Trust
- We will Continue Working with local schools especially Pakuranga college and Edgewater college
- Support the Science School Project.
- Support MUNA
- Support Trees for survival which our own Late Noel Holloke was instrumental in setting up
- Engage and support the local community through the River carnival in collaboration with Howick local board
- Work in collaboration with council in to commission the magnificent sculpture on the Rotary walkway to commemorate our clubs 50 years of service to the community.This is expected to happen in the next couple of months.
In addition to this I would like to add the following 2 new focus areas:
- Support the local community through a proposed new Mentorship programme which we will develop this year
- Support the RI Presidents aim at promoting mental health awareness .
People of all ages face anxiety and stress and I would like our club to get involved.As a takeaway from Cat levene’s talk at district changeover on Saturday It is staggering that there are 15 cases of hospitalisation everyday of young people causing self harm to themselves and one in every 4 kids below the age of 18 experiences a mental health issue and 50% of mental health issues start before the age of 12.These are staggering numbers and requires immediate attention.It is a major problem and Rotary can do a lot to work with schools and organisations and spread awareness and help in funding programs which address this problem
Rotary projects and activities for 2023-24
We will continue with Our main Fund raisers which are:
- The River carnival
- St.John’s golf day
- Meat raffles
We hope to re introduce the following fundraisers
- Trivia night and
- car boot sales and
- Introduce a Diwali night
Other Rotary activities for the year will include:
- Re-activating the Rotary youth exchange.We expect to welcome a young student from Germany who is expected to be here later this month and we will support an outgoing student as well.And of course as normal,please make her part of you plans and make her feel welcome.
- Re-activating the Holyoke Debate which we ran successfully for several years
- Introducing a proposed new rotary school quiz.I would like to spread the Rotary name among the local schools and the local community
- Introducing a proposed new Rotary mentorship programme details of which we will soon present to the club
- Create a group to work on mental health awareness
- In the past we supported the Middlemore foundation with Jamie’s in June.Would love to get that going again and start working with Middlemore Foundation and potentially use our Trivia night to raise funds for them.
- Re-invigorate the community service awards which recognises excellence in the local community and seek public nominations and reach a wider audience and create community awareness.
- We will organise in collaboration with Howick local board the Sculpture unveiling event at the Rotsry walkway to commemorate 50 years of our club’s service to the community
- Build community awareness through a Rotary storyboard highlighting the great things Rotary does and publish our Rotary stories on instagram and social media.
- And of course focus on making our River carnival and the Golf day bigger and better
I sincerely request every member to get into one of the project committees and help out whichever way they can.
Building Memberships and collaborations
- It is critical to create Brand awareness of Rotary in the community.There is so much great work being done but it does not get down to the public
- A large part of the way forward will be through mergers,collaborations and joint meetings with local clubs.We acknowledge the tremendous support we recieve from the Highbrook club
- I would love to work closely with other clubs in our area and explore what we can do together starting with enjoying great fellowship.To all the Presidents of local clubs-drop by with your members and join us at any of our meetings or for a drink on a Friday evening at the bar
- Offer Honorary memberships and encourage honorary members to attend club meetings/Events.It gives me great pleasure to welcome Bob Ritchie,Bill Duncan and Duncan Looney as Honorary life members to our club.
- Work on increasing woman’s participation in Rotary.We have Kim & Penelope on the board and hopefully Linda will take charge of the car boot sales when she gets back and my wife Sandhya who is a quizzer will assist with the school and club quiz and the trivia night.We need to find ways of attracting more women members
- Encourage ex members who may want to come back & keep our past Rotarians engaged with the club
- work with district on a plan to attract younger members.Obviously the current format will not work with youngsters and it’s got to be project focussed without the need for a meal, a meeting and a speaker and possibly a different fee structure.
Finally The fun side of Rotary and enjoying fellowship
We would love to make this a fun year and we will focus on enjoying great fellowship thanks to Ian Handisides who is our social Director.Our plans include
- Guess who is coming to Dinner
- Committee/project socials and our committee meetings can be over a coffee or a drink
- Periodic club dinners at new venues
- A possible Ten pin bowling night
- Trivia night
- Periodic club Quiz nights with a lively sargeant sessions
- Diwali night
- Christmas party
- A Possible Rotary day out-could be a little fun car rally culminating in a meal somewhere and some nice prizes.
I look forward to a fun year for our club and look forward to all of your support in making this happen.Let’s just do it.
Thank you all and hope you enjoy the rest of the evening.
I would now like to introduce Suleha and her group of dancers who will perform some Indian dances with a classical bent.Over to you Suleha.
For details of the Board plus photos from the evening please Read more below.
It now gives me great pleasure to introduce to you our new boards
I request each of you to come forward as your name is read out
- Past President and Club Sargeant Mike Collins
- Club Secretary Malcolm McLagan
- Director of club services Dennis Kavanagh
- Treasurer Kim Collins
- Director of Fund raising Alan Davies
- Director Community Peter Taylor
- Image Director Penelope Franca
- Director Youth Peter Woodcock
I would also like to mention a few non board members who will play a key role in our club:
- Mr.Rotary Graham Kearns is our exec sec and he is our go to person for everything Rotary and he handles our club runner with Peter Armstrong
- David Wardell is Membership in charge
- Peter Hawkins is in charge of the key role of council interface for our river carnival
- Allan Vester is our bulletin editor and thank you Alan for doing a great job over many years
- Peter Jollands will continue to be in charge of meat raffles which raises a fair pop for us.
- Ian Handisides will be our social director and the heart of our fellowship and
- Peter Armstrong will be running our IT as he has in the past several years
Thank you all for your excellent work.
