Its time to REGISTER to Go Wild About Rotary @ RotaFEST 18 - A Festival of Rotary, 11-13 May 2018, Palmerston North Convention Centre
The singular focus for you in this months edition of our District Bulletin is to get our District Rotarian's registered to attend the best and the NOT to be missed Rotary event of the year - RotaFEST 18 - A Festival of Rotary.
Click the registration link NOW and REGISTER to be part of this year’s District Rotary event - RotaFEST 18 - A Festival of Rotary, 11-13 May 2018
We have listened to your feedback and this year’s annual District Rotary Event will NOTbe a conference! This year RotaFEST 18 will incorporate in the programme many activities and opportunities for you to be entertained, to witness the Rotary opening of a world first in native animal care at WildBase Recovery, to enjoy world class speakers, and to share our Rotary experience and activities with each other and the community.
Be amazed with the talent of our high school youth jazz bands performing in public with support from the Rodger Fox Big Band. Kiwi icon and musical legend Mark Williams who is taking a break from performing with Dragon to be part of RotaFEST 18. Most recently Mark performed with Dragon at WOMAD in New Plymouth where the crowd erupted in to life with huge energy and entertainment with the musical smorgasbord served up.
Which is more valuable to your Rotary club? A. One new member? B. One retained member? The answer is definitely B … a member retained is a satisfied member- engaged and fully involved in the work of making our world a better place!
We often focus so heavily on recruiting new members that we forget how vital it is to the health and vibrancy of our Rotary clubs to retain engaged members. Here is a simple, yet powerful way for you to help engage your members: Pick up the phone and start creating connections. Nothing engages a member more than a personal connection. It’s a smart strategy that a lot of membership organizations have used to grow. In fact, Sarah Rintamaki, the Founder and Executive Director of Connecting for Kids used personal connections to help grow her organization over 300% in just the first year.
Like all good Rotary projects…its starts with a need. The Awapuni Rotary Club celebrated its 50th anniversary supporting, among other things the local community of the suburb of Awapuni. The club was looking for a project and through our club hosting “Awesome Awapuni Day”, a free community-building event that brings neighbours together for food and entertainment, we were approached by residents to upgrade an old park – Raleigh Street Reserve.
Raleigh Park
The park is surrounded by state houses, some were demolished, and this has left the area desolate.
Club President Kevin Gilbert and project champion David Chapple formed a working relationship with the Awesome Awapuni community group and the city council. For the project to succeed we needed the full support of the locals, so we undertook a series of incremental projects:
Marion has been asked some interesting questions about herself and her background - so here are some of the answers (without the questions):
I was born in Invercargill to a librarian and an accountant (those were their day jobs – they were a quilter and ornithologist at heart)
There are only two of us, and my younger brother is an awesomely talented artist.
The secondary school subjects I was good at were the languages and I won the school poetry and French prizes. However I was hopeless at maths and science – how I ended up as financial controller of an automotive business, I don’t know, although we have been in business for 23 years
An interest and love of community service began while I was still at school – worked on a school holiday programme in Aro Street Wellington, and later with the revolutionary Newtown Adventure Playground, both of which opened my white middle class eyes.
Rotarians from the Wairapara cluster were given the opportunity to see the inside of the bus being outfitted as the new medical bus for Rarotonga.
Clusdter AG John Stevenson said that "the inside of the bus seems just as roomy as it looked when it was gutted" . I was imagining it getting quite tight in there but looks very smart and really impressed with the finished detailing. I know that you (David Baker), Rob (Irwin), Paul (Snelgrove) and others at Masterton Sth have put a lot into this project and you in particular must be delighted to see it to this penultimate stage. Countless folk in Rarotonga are going to benefit from your koha David and I hope this knowledge will bring a lot of satisfaction to you in years to come."
Sorry don't have a photo of the inside yet (Editor)
This month is Maternal and Child Health Month so I decided to look in the Rotary Showcase (hint you will need to be logged in to the RI website) under the Heading of our Focus area "Maternal and Child Healh. There were 45774 projects to look at.
I chose this one.
Narail, a rural area in west side of Bangladesh. peoples are there very poor and underprivileged. Medical treatment and facilities are very rare in that area.
Rotary club of metropolitan Chittagong donated a oxygen cylinder and 2 nebulizer there to a newly established hospital by very popular national cricket player Mashrafi bin Mortuza
Has your club thought of anything it could do this month locally?
Access to safe and clean water revitalizes a community
By Narayan Murarka, Suzanne Gibson, Mark Gibson, Mary Holcomb (Members of the Rotary Club of Barrington Breakfast), Jorge Aufranc (Rotary International Director), and Francisco Viau (Member of the Rotary Club of Guatemala Sur)
The Barrington Breakfast Rotary Club from Illinois, United States, has been working with the Guatemala Sur Rotary Club in Guatemala City, Guatemala, for more than six years. We have concentrated on the needs of people in the region of Sumpango, in the Sacatepequez Department, by carrying out several major initiatives which have expanded in both breadth and depth over time.
One of these initiatives focuses on preventing diseases in children through access to clean drinking water and improved hygiene practices within the community.
Food Plant Solutions provides a self-sustainable solution that empowers people to make informed choices about what plants to grow and eat that will nutritionally feed their family. We rely solely on fundraising to sustain our activities. Detailed information is available on www.foodplantsolutions.org and you can donate via our website.
Funds are urgently needed to enable the continued development of information and resources to support programs being developed in countries throughout the world
I have been asked to see if we can provide donations/funding to purchase more milk powder for the orphan elephants in Borneo.
Currently the manager at Sepilok is buying milk powder adhoc from local stores from tourist contributions at the centre. They have no money. Elephant calves are suffering with poor quality diet.
Can we please promote this opportunity to support the communities around Tathra and Bega (RI Director Noel Trevaskis' Club and community) who have been devestated by recent bush fires that have swept into the communities with the loss of homes and possessions. In supporting DG Stephen Hill, I take his request to send funds to the designated account to support the local community through the council fund established for this event. Please also note the upcoming edition of RDU magazine which speaks to the issue around our organisations responses and coordination of Rotary support and engagement with communities and such disasters.
Earth Day, April 22, 2018, is fast approaching, which is also the “soft” closing date for President Ian Riseley’s Environmental Sustainability 1.2 Million Tree Challenge: “Plant a tree for every Rotarian”. Many Districts and their clubs have already engaged. Congratulations if your District’s clubs have already completed the Challenge. If not, there’s still time!
To date, over 3,370 Tree Planting projects have been uploaded on the Rotary Project Showcase. You can review these projects for inspiration and ideas by logging into my.rotary.org and using this link to search for the keyword "tree". (Hint: the search only works automatically when you are logged in!)
As part of 2017-18 RI President Ian Riseley’s tree-planting initiative, members of the Rotary International Staff Society planted eight trees in a bird sanctuary in Evanston, Illinois, USA.
The 2019 Rotary Peace Fellowship application is now available! As a Rotarian, you play a key role in communicating information about Rotary Peace Centres programs to potential candidates. We encourage you to use and share these resources:
Our District Website has the details for registration and accommodation that will get you to the Districts biggest event of the year - RotaFEST 18.
Book your Rotary event of the year - RotaFEST 18, where you will be able to GO Wild About Rotary !
PDG Glen Caves as our District Events Chair has lined up the program and activities that you will not want to miss with an outstanding weekend of Rotary information and fellowship, with great jazz music and international performing artists, great food and speakers. Lots to see and do from the Rotary opening of the WildBase Recovery Centre on Friday the 11th, culminating in our District Training Assembly on Sunday 13th May. The Saturday 12th May is a sandwich packed day of experiences, conference, festival and fellowship for all to enjoy.
In conjunction with the Rotary Club of Lincoln, the Rotary Club of Plimmerton is proudly showcasing the talents of young adults with learning difficulties and/or intellectual impairment at the Rotary Best Speaker Awards on 27 May. This is the fourth year for this highly successful event and competing in it has made a great difference to the young contestants who come from all over New Zealand.
Plimmerton Rotary would like more Rotary clubs to be aware of this event and find potential contestants in their area whom they might be able to support to put their names forward.
Do get in touch if you think you can make a difference in the life of a young adult. ‘Helping one person may not change the world, but it could change the world for one person’.
The Conference (formerly the Institute) will be held in Hobart on 14 – 16 September 2018 and Rotary International Director Noel Trevaskis invites all Rotarians to join us for this event. There will be a number of interesting presenters covering Rotary projects and issues of interest together with a variety of breakout sessions. What better way to keep up-to-date and enjoy mixing with Rotarians from all Australian states and from New Zealand as well as visiting some of the many attractions on offer. Prior to the conference on the 13th September will be a Future Leaders Seminar
I have it on good authority there will not be any discussion of cricket (Editors note)