Breakfast Meeting:
Total Present: 18
Members: 17
Guests: 1
Co-President Gary welcomed all including one guest, Chris Osborne, who is the incoming President of the Auckland City Rotaract. He also invited Chris to say a few words. Chris was keen to promote their change-over which will be held tomorrow July 19 at the Ellen Melville Centre, 2 Freyberg Place Auckland. Tickets are only $29 each and can be purchased online at; Linktr.ee/rotaractakl. Are you able to support Rotaract, interested in attending? You will need to register immediately.
Due to the full agenda today there were no club notices, although the "Sergeant" of Slease was still able to find time to inflict his venom on a few members!
Gary then handed the chair to Co-President Graham who shared with us the financial status of the club, which, for a number of reasons, is not good. Graham prepared a short power point presentation which detailed the situation very clearly, but once again we were thwarted by the technology at the Golf Club and this was not able to be shared. However, Graham has covered off all the pertinent points under the President Pen column above.
Issues, concerns and potential actions to remedy the situations will be discussed in more detail at future meetings.
Those present then broke up into the various committee groups to share ideas and discuss options on the direction of the club over the next 12 months. Unfortunately time was very limited, so these discussions will also need to continue in the weeks ahead.
Despite the limited time available there was still some good discussion and a brief summary from each of the Directors follows;
Club Services - Lesley:
- Speakers: these continue to be challenging to source. Any ideas to be shared with Penny & Lesley
- Off-site Vocational meetings are normally very popular and ideas will be considered. One possible immediate one could be a visit to the GI Police Station and Patrick undertook to talk to Glen Innes Police and see if we could visit.
- Graham Fabian suggested Ted's Talks as a source of speakers.
- Peter W distributed a short survey related to the Bulletin seeking to better understand what members want in the Bulletin. Many thanks to all who completed the survey - these will be available to others to complete at the next meeting.
Youth - Liz Gunn:
- Group discussed both new and existing programmes, including:
- RYDA , in the next calendar year
- RYLA, under Tom's stewardship with other club member support
- MUNA, school staff to lead
- CITIZEN Awards, $400 at end of year prizegivings to most Manaiakalani schools, to support deserving or needy students, Kevin and Liz to support
- Dictionaries in Schools, Liz to confirm
- RYPEN, Ainie to lead with Rotaractors
- Trees for Survival, Peter and Gary lead this initiative
- Have a Go Sailing. Gary liaises with NZY on this
- Basketball Leadership programme, began this year, Chris Herlihy leading this
- Manaiakalani Forum, Kevin to attend some meetings
- The committee suggested more regular committee meetings would be a way to generate engagement and enthusiasm, particularly with discussion of fundraising needed to support the above initiatives.
Environment & Science - Peter Buchanan:
- Committed projects:
- Apirana Reserve - continued ground preparation, mulching, and native tree planting - partnering with Friends of Apirana Reserve (Ken, Nanda, Roger), and ultimately expanding to include Trees for Survival. Consultation with Auckland Council and Kiwirail as land-owners.
- Science & Technology Forum - preparation for student sponsorship in association with Youth Committee. Also District coordination of applications from all D9920 Rotary Clubs.
- Suggested for further consideration:
- Advertising to community of service to harvest surplus fruit from home-grown fruit trees, and distribute to community with need
- Clean-ups of beaches, streams, or walkways - advertising also to community to gain their participation
- Community picnic in Apirana Reserve - promoting community engagement and involvement of local businesses, also potential fundraising.
- Calculate carbon footprint of St Johns Rotary, take steps to offset that footprint, eg by planting (or purchase carbon credits), and challenge other Rotary and Rotaract clubs to do likewise. Customised calculator for NZ clubs has been developed through ESRAG (Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group).