Presidents report for 2022/2023
The new Rotary year got off to a wonderful start with the celebration of the Clubs 60th anniversary with a dinner held at the Boulcott Heritage Farm Golf Club on 29th June. What a wonderful evening of reminiscing. John Prendergast (Past District Governor of District 9980 and current President of Petone Rotary Club) was a highly entertaining MC and had us laughing for most of the evening.
It was a real pleasure to award the latest of Paul Harris fellowships to an ex-member of our club Sir John Clarke and to present Jenny Jameson a Rotary Foundation Major Donor pin and crystal, in recognition of Michael’s generous gift to the Foundation.
There are several aspects of our Rotary life:
Our Fellowship
Our weekly meetings where we engage in fellowship and have committee meetings or hear from speakers.
This year we have had a wide array of speakers on many different topics. We have heard from:
Stephen Cross (Community Policing Team Naenae)
Karen Morgan (Principal – Taita College)
Ray Tomlinson (JT Group)
Wayne Gordon (District Governor Elect – Regionalisation Pilot)
Marilyn Stevens (District Governor Visit)
David Ruscoe (Cryptocurrency)
Matt Claridge (Executive Director – Te Araroa Trust)
Josh Krakosky (Chiropractor)
Sir Anand Satyanand (Former Governor General of New Zealand)
Ralph Stewart (Lifetime Retirement Income)
Bill Day (Wellington Childrens Hospital)
Ian James and Mary Atkins (along with Dendi and Ned – Service Dogs)
Yazmin Nouri (Malaghan Institute)
Club Members (West Coast Adventures)
David Taylor (MFAT – former Ambassador to the EU)
Judith O’Byrne (Salvation Army – foodbank choice model)
Bob Maxwell (Overland Skiing to the South Pole)
Jane Gillingham (Lower Hutt School Attendance team leader)
Bill Boyd (Rotary Peace Centres)
Judith Gardner (HVHS Archivist)
Alaister Henshaw (Predator Free Wellington)
Linda Hoogenboom (Diversional Therapist)
I would like to thank all our speakers for giving up their time to come and present to us.
A number of our members also visited the Rotary Club of River Valley in August to hear MP for Rimutaka, Chris Hipkins speak. Little did we know that he would be the Prime Minister of New Zealand only a few months later.
Our Christmas party in December was an opportunity for us to socialise with our partners and Rotarian friends and we were entertained by June and Gary Stratton who also got us all singing carols and Christmas songs.
In April we also had a fantastic club visit to the New Zealand Campus of Innovation and Sport in Upper Hutt. What an amazing facility for the Wellington region. Thank you, Ron Hunter and past member Aaron Portland, for organising this visit.
Our Fundraising
Our first major fundraiser of the year was in August and was the wine tasting fundraiser. Eight vintners from the Wairarapa braved the conditions, travelled to the Hutt Valley, and provided us with the opportunity to taste their boutique wines. Over $5000 was raised for the new Wellington Childrens Hospital. Special thanks must go to Sue Darling for her outstanding work with this event.
The Rotary Club of River Valley asked us to help with traffic management at a Quilters Exhibition held at Sacred Heart in October. This was a good way to get to know rotarians from another club and we also received a generous donation for the work.
Through a generous grant we received from the Chenery Memorial Trust we were able to make a substantial donation to a group of Taita College students to enable them to attend the Great Barrier Hillary Outdoors Education Centre.
We again held the Christmas Trailer Raffle at Queensgate Mall. This is a big project with all our club members involved in selling tickets. The fundraising from this raffle enables us to make donations in our local community.
This year saw our club form a partnership with the committee that organise a major golf tournament to fundraise for the Te Omanga Hospice. Eastern Hutt Rotary were immensely proud to be one the major supporters of this year's Hospice Golf Day today. It was held at Boulcott Farm Heritage Golf Club, with 38 teams entered. The event raised a sum of around $69,000 for Te Omanga Hospice. One of our jobs was to man the fine dining tent. Thank you to all our members that supported this great event. Thank you to Doug Palmer for his great job as auctioneer and special thanks for the great work of Jan Palmer and Brian Clarke in smoothly leading this valued relationship for this event.
A fashion parade was held in March at Ballantynes Lower Hutt, to raise funds for Cyclone Gabrielle relief. It was a great fundraiser making $2400. Our models (Linda, Glenda, Jaye and Eve) did a wonderful job and looked amazing.
Also in March, we held Walk for Mental Health (back after a gap last year due to Covid cancellation). This event did not attract the school team entries that we had in past years, so the participant numbers were not as high. What was missing in numbers was certainly made up for in enthusiasm of the people that did come along. We couldn’t run this event without the huge support of the Wellington Tenths Trust. They support us with providing the venue and a generous donation. Sponsors of the day also include Pak n Save Petone (sausages) and Rutherford and Bond (use of the BBQ). The band Quite Some Company, led by Margy Bliss ensures that there is a wonderful atmosphere. $3000 was raised that we donated to Youthline Wellington. We received a great writeup in their bulletin. Shelley Bryant and James Wheeler put a huge amount of effort into the organisation of this day.
The Youth committee put on a Quiz with a Difference in April, which was a wonderful entertaining evening and also raised funds to go towards Usborne Dictionaries in local primary schools.
A social dinner out in Petone at First Choice Restaurant raised funds that we were able to send to our former member Pat Heffernan (now living in Wanaka and a member of their Rotary Club) some funds towards his trip to Vanuatu to help rebuild schools.
Weekly sergeant sessions (thank you Errol and John), monthly meat raffles (thanks you Absie), book and produce sales (thank you David) and Christmas pudding sales (thank you Anne) all contribute to the club fundraising and enable us to continue to support our regular rotary projects IYM (Innovative Young Minds), RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards), and make donations in our local community.
Our Service
Te Omanga Hospice has been the recipient of some of our service this year. During 2021/2022 a project was started to relocate the bird aviary at Te Omanga Hospice and this has been successfully completed. The hospice also asked if our Club would be able to paint the eastern fence, so a working bee was organised for March to get his job done.
Our members have participated in a Club capacity in two street collections throughout the year for Womens Refuge and Te Omanga Hospice.
We held our annual Riverbank clean up in October and continued to maintain the Riverbank Native plantings to the North of Fraser park and the upkeep of the memorial seat that is placed there.
A big project this year was the courtyard garden in the dementia ward of the Enliven home in Woburn. Mary Houston (wife of our former member Richard Houston) generously donated the funds and we provided the people power to renovate the garden. This proved to be a large and ongoing project for the year and the garden has been transformed. Thank you so much to Annette who has led this project and been the liaison with Enliven, our club and Mary.
Some of our members helped out Petone Rotary Club with their major project of the year, assisting with traffic marshalling at the end of the day.
Healthy in the Hutt was held on 17 June at Walter Nash Stadium. Shelly again co-ordinated the event with many community organisations and health groups taking part. This is a day that provides valuable health information and connections and helpful conversations with members of our community. Our club provides the lunch and is very grateful for the support of Countdown Upper Hutt for providing fruit and rolls for the day. Thank you must go to Julia Milne of the He Puawai Trust who suppled the fabulous vegetable soup. It was delicious!
These three aspects form the basis of our club, and we continue to be a busy and active organisation.
We have been joined this year by two new members. It was a pleasure to welcome Mike Keehan into the club in November and June Stratton in March. I hope that you have felt welcome, and I look forward to working alongside you both and getting to know you better in the future.
Sadly, we lost one of our much-loved members in October with the passing of Wim Julicher. Wim had been a member of our club since 1995. I felt very proud to see so many from our club make the journey to Martinborough to join Sue and the rest of Wim’s family at his funeral. I also want to acknowledge the passing of John Pudney – a former member (more recently an honorary member). John was another hard-working contributor to Rotary of many years.
This year I have had the support of an incredibly hard-working Board. A huge thank you to Annette Ruck (Environment and Amenities Committee), Shelley Bryant (Health and Community Committee), Brian Clarke (International Committee), Robin Aitken (Youth Committee), Anne Abbott, John Matthews, Mike Fackney, David Thompson (secretary) and Tony Cornelius (Treasurer). I can not thank you enough for all the work you have done.
Each and every member contributes to our club in so many ways, doing their rostered duties, donating their time and efforts for projects and their $$ for fundraising. I would like to especially mention Jan Palmer (Bulletin Editor), Brian Klee (website, Facebook, duty roster) and Ron Hunter who ensures our meetings and special events go ahead so smoothly.
In finishing I would like to thank everyone for their support of the club and to me in my year as President. I know the club is in safe hands as I pass the Presidency on to John Matthews and I know you will all support him as you’ve supported me.