Our partners/friends of Rotary night on 10^th September was very well attended.  Bernie and Tony Lepper were our guest speakers and told of their biking travels in the Balkans (and see below). An amazing and unique experience.

 

Our venue for the evening was The Station.  Their sliders, hot chips and a nice bevy concluded a thoroughly enjoyable evening.   Our hosts were very pleased to have been supported by Rotary. It was good to be able to support a new business too.

 

Megan Longman and Maddi Mannix spoke about ‘Journeys’ on 24^th September. In the words of Immediate Past President John, ‘what a superb, locally grown and developed programme they run – it’s all about building the confidence and wellbeing of young girls through adventures in the wonderful outdoors that surround us’ (and see below).

 

 

Rhys has taken on the role of Trustee for the Lend a Hand Foundation with Keith Morgan from Cromwell and Sue McGregor from Roxburgh.  Hugh casts his financial mind over the books at the end of each year which is much appreciated too.  The current funding round closes on 6^th October.  Details can be found on our website.

 

Please read the piece on the Health Bus (below) which will be at the Merino Shears 4^th and 5^th October.  This is a great example of collaboration amongst our clubs to achieve something greater than what an individual club could perhaps put together. 

 

It was good to see Rotary recognised in ‘The News’ recently with articles on the Wood Splitting team featuring Phil and Les.  And also, the Trees for Babies programme featuring Bernie and two other REAP grans celebrating the birth of their grandchildren.

 

Mark and Rhys have organised a movie ‘Fly me to the Moon’ on Tuesday 1^st October at 7pm.  Proceeds are going towards the club’s contribution to Polio Plus.  It is a RomCom so should be a bit of fun.  Please get in touch with Mark asap to book a seat or two.

 

A reminder to diary 10am, Saturday 12^th October - the official opening day of the new growing season at the Community Garden (see what snow did to one structure below right). The Salvation Army invite you to plant a few seeds and seedlings and to partake in a light lunch.

Nev is on the job and has the Quiz Night organised for Tuesday12th November.  There is still a wee bit of time to get your team together and a raffle or two.

 

Jillian

 

 

 

Growing up on a high-country station and developing a love of whitewater kayaking, Megan Longman knew how rewarding a love of the outdoors could be.

The 35-year-old took that love of physical activity into her career as physiotherapist, a field she has worked in for 14 years in Alexandra.

But the vast majority of people she came across enjoying outdoor activities such as mountain biking were men, and there were very few young girls.

 

She began to think about the barriers girls faced in getting into the outdoors.

‘‘As a generalisation, girls and women tend to give something a go if they’re pretty confident they can already do it quite well.

‘‘Boys and men, on the other hand, they might think, ‘oh yeah, I can do 20 or 30% of that so I’ll give it a go’.

‘‘So, worries about competence, and about slowing the group down, these sorts of things are probably barriers.’’

 

After years of dreaming of ideas, she and friend Kim Froggatt came up with a programme to change that trend and empower young Central Otago women.

 

Ironically, they did so while out on a bike ride.

In late 2018 they began a pilot programme called Journeys, which involved taking eight year 7 girls (11 and 12 years of age) on outdoor mountain biking and walking adventures.

 

They then received a year of funding, mentoring and support through Sport New Zealand’s Innovations for Women and Girls programme, which helped them grow the project into a charitable trust.

 

Journeys now has 13 trained local instructors, and at the start of this year a programme had 42 girls taking part.

It has built self-confidence, created social connections and, importantly, provided some outdoor fun.

 

Thousands of hours of work had gone into the programme, but those hours were well spent, Megan said.

‘‘It’s incredibly rewarding, especially living in a small community where we’re really in touch with so many different families and all the schools.

 

‘And it’s such a privilege to work with young people, we just love wandering down the street and bumping into some of the Journeys girls and having a connection with them.’’ She had big dreams for the future of Journeys.

 

The team was building a leadership programme, and working on what that would look like.

The curriculum was also being worked on. As well as the practical skills involved in outdoor activities, the team was looking at other aspects such as self-confidence, resilience and self-worth.

Central Lakes Trust is also a funder.

 

Alexandra Rotary decided to support the Women’s Health Bus this year with funds generated from the Charity Dinner, via a joint project driven by the Wanaka club. 

This is an update from Wanaka who have now lodged an application for a Foundation Grant.

Thank you very much for your help in getting your respective Rotary Clubs to commit to contributing to the Rotary Club of Wanaka's efforts to fund a GeneXpert PCR machine, for the Dr. Helen Paterson initiated, Te Waka Hauora Trust's Woman's Health Bus.

 

This message is to let you know the application to District 9999 was lodged by email last night (19th September).

 

Attached is a copy of a supporting letter which accompanied the application.

 

In addition, you may also like to view the 9-minute video, which an independent filmmaker produced, to tell the story behind the research paper:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVJmszc0moc&t=574s

 

We are very pleased to have the application lodged, and will let you know what transpires once deliberations by the D9999 Rotary Foundation Grants Committee are complete. 

 

Assuming it is a positive outcome, then it will be time to transfer funds into The Rotary Club of Wanaka Charitable Trust's account, if your club hasn't done so already.  For the record, that account is with Westpac and is A/C # 03 1739 0067494 000

 

Kind Regards, and thanks for your support.

Nikki Carey - Rotary Club of Wanaka, Youth and Vocation Director

Alan Richardson - President Elect, Rotary Club of Wanaka

 

The Rotary Club of Wanaka has been fundraising to help Dr. Helen Paterson and Te Waka Wahine Hauora – The Woman’s Health Bus buy a GeneXpert PCR machine: current cost $37,800.

Cervical cancer is the 3rd commonest gynaecological cancer in NZ. The causative agent is HPV (human papilloma virus), an STI (sexually transmitted infection). Cervical cancer is the 2nd most common cause of death in young Māori women aged 24 - 44 years.

NZ has had a cervical screening programme since 1990. Last September, this was changed from a clinician taken cytological test, to a less invasive self or clinician taken PCR based test.

This form of testing is both more accurate and more acceptable to women. HPV PCR testing uses the same technology as Covid tests. NCSP (national cervical screening programme) figures show a screening rate of 72% for the 

Otago/Southland area which has a large rural population. Meaning, 28% of eligible women have never been screened despite the NCSP call up/invitation system. The screening rate figure is even lower for Māori (61.1%), Pacific (60.7%) and Asian (54.7%) women.

 

Dr. Helen Patterson, a Gynaecologist at Dunedin Hospital and Otago Med School, established Te Waka Wahine Hauora Trust and funded its campervan sized mobile clinic herself; to address this low screening rate and known difficulties for rural Southern Te Waipounamu women to access appropriate gynaecological screening and treatment. With no HPV PCR screening in the bus, these 1st step tests need to go to a Dunedin Pathology lab, and for abnormal tests, further/subsequent-day arrangements need to be made for 2nd step colposcopy sampling.

 

A GeneXpert PCR machine in her bus clinic would provide very accurate point of contact results from HPV PCR cervical screening within 1 hour; and for abnormal tests, colposcopy sampling to be undertaken, including in rural locations, on the same day. For Noting Dr Helen’s clinic is currently providing general contraceptive, STI and cervical screening (sampling) clinics.

 

Dr. Helen’s clinic notifies results to the NSCP (national cervical screening programme) and can refer abnormal results to Te Whatu Ora using the standard Gynaecological pathway. Before Dr Helen’s bus ‘arrived’, rural women had to travel to either Dunedin or Invercargill hospitals for colposcopy sampling. Dr Helen’s clinic is already accredited to provide 2nd step colposcopy sampling. NZ has both a cervical screening programme and a funded HPV vaccination programme for young women and men since 2017. HPV may be eliminated one day!

Dr Helen foresees her mobile bus clinic model of gynaecological care delivery could be scaled up nationally. The WHO has called for the elimination of cervical cancer. Dr Helen Paterson had a research paper, on delivering cervical screening to women at a mobile shearing gang event, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal in early June 2024 - the research was funded by a Health Research Council grant. The paper reports a key outcome of screening at the 2-day shearing gang event was that, of the 21 women that engaged, 14 had a smear analysed using the GeneXpert PCR machine, and of that 14, 6, were found to have abnormalities needing investigation.

 

Notes from the Rotary meeting “Family Evening” held at “The Station” boutique brewery in Boundary Road, Alexandra on 10/9/24. 

The meeting opened with club president Jillian Jopp welcoming members, partners and guests and indicating that it would be an informal evening with a presentation from Bernie and Tony Lepper about a recent biking holiday in the Balkans. She then asked John Whitaker to introduce Tony and Bernie (who of course needed little introduction to most of the people present.)

The presentation was titled “Biking the Balkans” and was accompanied by a very interesting photographic screening of various locations visited.
 

Tony and Bernie’s journey commenced in Tirana in Albania, where they commented on its recent history under a dictatorship from the 1940’s until 1991. Apparently there has been considerable development since then but there are still many areas of the city suburbs that are untidy and full of rubbish from what Tony indicated. The coastal areas of the country are however much cleaner and modern looking and developed to attract tourism. Also, churches are now being rebuilt as none existed during the communist regime.
 

The countryside is however largely untouched by development and they found the people very friendly but speaking very little English. They travelled for about eight hours each day and cycled down the coast to near the Greek border before turning inland and riding north again. They visited a very scenic and large lake area (Lake Ohrid) and eventually headed further north to Montenegro.

 

They then went to Bosnia, to Sarajevo, a city from which their daughter in law Selma escaped when in the recent conflicts it was surrounded by the Serbians. They met with a neighbour who was a friend of their daughter in law when she lived there during the siege and were warmly greeted. Tony and Bernie commented briefly on what they saw in Sarajevo and the impact of the religious divisions in that area. People in Sarajevo did speak more English than in other places which made things easier for them.
After that they briefly went to Dubrovnik which they very much enjoyed.
 

There were some questions at this stage about what currency they used and how safe they felt etc. Mainly they used euros and they said they felt quite safe in Albania and thought it was a great adventure.

 

They subsequently went to Italy and on to Austria before coming back to NZ.