Last Coffee Morning
Our last coffee morning of the year will take place this Friday 18th December from 10.00 am at Reality Bites, Sawyers Arms Road. Come and join us, we would love to see you there.
Tony
The President’s Blurb
We enjoyed last Thursday's end of year function. The venue was wonderful, the food was great and there was lots of laughter and fellowship. Amanda Atlas was amazing and entertained us beautifully. Many thanks to the partners and spouses for joining us on the night.
The club presented some certificates of appreciation to a number of family members of Rotarians who are always doing a lot of work behind the scenes. Cynthia Tizzard received one for the work she does making sure our raffle prize table and baskets are looking good.
Heather Mitchell received one for all the work she does supporting Ronald McDonald House and supporting Keith in his Rotary work. In addition to the shifts at the trailer raffle desk they did together Heather did additional shifts while Rotary was meeting and even had Keith's trailer cleaned up and ready to go if the new trailer ordered didn't arrive in time.
Glen Tregurtha received a certificate as he is always supporting Deryn in the work she does for the club. He is continually setting up spreadsheets for rosters doing design work and producing posters for the trailer and the trailer raffle desk. This wonderful work going on in the background by these lovely folk makes Rotary run very smoothly.
A big thank you to all three of you.
In addition to our club's end of year function Liz and Nick, Arie and myself attended the end of year BBQ of the Rolleston club. They are a great bunch of younger Rotarians doing wonderful work in their community.
A highlight of the evening was being able to catch up with Keagan McLean, the district Rotary Youth Exchange student who arrived home a couple of months early after spending time in Brazil, much of it in lock down. He had to quarantine in Auckland on the way home but he was looking well and has quite a story to tell.
Our district (9970) merges with Otago/Southland (9980) to form a new district 9999 as from 1 July 2022. Nick is the last District Governor of our district as we know it and Jan Boustead, our former district trainer is the first District Governor of district 9999.
There is a lot of work involved in merging two districts with different policies and procedures, different banking set ups and reserves built up over the years that everybody is concerned about etc. Nick and Arie are on the transition management team (TMT) overseeing this.
There are 8 focus teams made up from Rotarians across the South Island that will be busy over the holiday period meeting by zoom and exchanging emails as they think how about how a new district will look.
Liz is co-chair of the Public Image group, Mandi is a co-chair of a New Generation group and Johny, who is now a member of Rolleston Rotary, is a member of the Young Persons group.
Nick is also committed to a programme of sessions training incoming District Governors over the holidays. Sadly he doesn't get to travel to Orlando for the training but is receiving it via zoom sessions.
South Pacific President Elect training always happened in the first weekend of March at Waipuna Conference Centre in Auckland. Waipuna is not available next year because it is still a quarantine hotel. The training has therefore been shifted to Christchurch and will be held at St Margarets College 5-7 March 2021.
Liz is heavily involved in the organisation and management of this conference and Deb Gimblett has also been drawn into organising things. Our club will be looked to to help and has been asked to do significant catering over the weekend as a fundraiser. This will involve incoming presidents of Rotary clubs from all over New Zealand. At this stage our Pacific Island neighbours will not be joining us.
In addition to that there is lot on in 2021. I will speak to that more at our first event of the year which is "Bring Your Takeaways" to Deb Gimblett's house at 340 Marine Parade, New Brighton on Thursday the 14th of January at 6.00 pm.
Thank you for all your work during the year. Please enjoy your Christmas break with your families and stay safe.
Janice
Thought for the Week
“Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.”