Editorial

ROTARY MEETING TUESDAY July 23^rd

The speaker this night was Kerrie Barnett a teacher at Dunstan High School.

Kerrie spoke about the Sir Edmund Hillary Himalayan Trust in Nepal. Kerrie has been a Trust Board member for 8 years now and has visited Nepal.

Edmund Hilary after climbing Mt Everest in 1953, noticing the run-down nature of the area, spoke to the local people about how he might be able to help them.

Help them he certainly did over the years. With the trust that he established, to date 30 schools (alone) have been established. Of all the projects undertaken, this project has been by far the most important and helpful.

Other things that the Trust has done apart from education, are improvements in health care for the locals and the availability of potable water. There is also a reforestation project started or starting on the lower areas of the country where trees should establish quite well.

What the Himalayan Trust has done over many years is truly amazing and has won New Zealand many friends.

Sir Edmund said: “Life is a bit like mountaineering – never look down".

 ROTARY MEETING TUESDAY July 30^TH

This evening we watched a Video that the current District Governor (19/20) Tania Lowery had made. Tania is a member of the Balclutha Rotary Club.

The purpose of this video, she explained was so that each club in her district 9980 could hear her explain her plans for her term of office. She still intends to visit clubs, although working full-time as well will make actual visits a little more difficult.

The video message she hoped would inspire and encourage Rotarians. Tania emphasised that Rotary is a service organisation not a meeting organisation. She said that we should all follow the Rotary international idea in terms of meetings and vary the meetings, so that they are not all the same and also to try different categories of membership to try and appeal to a wider group of potential members.

Clubs need to both evolve and adapt, enhance participant engagement, try the on-line learning centre, work with neighbouring clubs on projects, invite your children along to a meeting and to projects.

Tania also spoke about the challenge of polio and mentioned World Polio Day coming up soon in Sydney. She would like to see each club donate $1000 dollars to this.

She also reiterated that we should network with other clubs but also with the various Assistant District Governors who are next inline for the DG position and are very knowledgeable about Rotary affairs.

Tania has a sign written vehicle with various Rotary slogans including polio that can be borrowed for promotional purposes.

There was a mock court session in which a ADG was lambasted for not doing his job (I think).

To finish up, Tania said “we are all super heroes” and that the theme for year 19/20 is: -

Rotary Connects the World

 

 

 

 

 

From the previous Bulletin. There are a few happening projects and a couple of possible projects coming up in the near future that are going to require some input and support from club members.

 

 

This project is in conjunction with CODC Parks & Reserves and Corrections Department. Corrections had very little work in the Alexandra area to give to young guys who were sentenced to Periodic Detention until CODC came up with the idea of tidying up the River Trail (which is badly in need of some TLC), so we agreed to supervise the groups on a Saturday, and work on a worthwhile community project at the same time. For past Saturdays, Club members have been toiling away with up to 7 young men working their way down from Clyde towards Alexandra. It has been tough going, hacking through blackberry, briar, broom, lupins and clearing tree branches that have been cut down and left on the side of the trail. Our brief is to open the trail up to at least 2 metres on either side of the gravelled area, and that will then become the spray line where CODC Contractors will spray to kill any vegetation that grows up in the future.