Jenny Haworth

 

President Elect, PE Jenny Haworth, spoke to us about her training at SPPETS ( South Pacific Presidents Elect Training ) in Auckland at the beginning of March.

Jenny reflected that she had really enjoyed the interaction of being with over 300 other PE’s from all over the country and the Pacific Islands. She had found the sessions stimulating and informative explaining that each main plenary speaker was followed by a focused breakout session. This gave the opportunity for each District to mix so that the sharing of ideas would be most effective.

 

The session she enjoyed the most was the Public Image session where PDG Juliet Riseley told a great story about fire and cooking in Peru. This was followed by our own Liz Courtney as Rotary Public Image Coordinator, who gave a powerful presentation telling stories and giving examples of good stories, the power of social media and her “knickers for squatters camp children's story to name a few.

 

Jenny then asked Liz to give a short recap of these stories to the members. Liz highlighted the fact that the giving of the knickers started with our own club and she thanked them for this head start in gathering approximately 3,000 pairs !

 

Liz then told the story of the Chch City Mission and the Gold Star, where once again the original idea had come through via our club. She asked for 10 Rotary clubs to join her in giving $ 5K to the City Mission over the Xmas time. The importance of exposing our Rotary logo and advertising opportunity through marketing material and Facebook video was a great way to advertise the good work of Rotary in general.

 

Jenny then finished by saying the training experience was going to prove very valuable in her decision making when President next year. The two most valuable things she had taken away with her was that we, Rotary, needed to be more flexible moving forward and that we should be asking new members what they wanted to do in Rotary.

Anything is possible !!  She then thanked President Lois for her inspirational leadership this year in moving the club forward saying she hoped to continue this trend.