Another very lively meeting with 32 members and 4 special guests in attendance.
Our guest speaker, Peter Boshier, Chief Ombudsman, is also an Honorary member of St Johns Rotary, and we were honoured to not only to have Peter present, but also two other Honorary Members present in the form of Alex McKenzie and David Stone. David was accompanied by his wife, Jill.Peter is based in Wellington, where he and his staff of 100 provide independent monitoring to areas of the NZ community where there is unresolved conflict. He is responsible to New Zealand Parliament and he is free to act on a wide range of issues. Peter loves his job and is prepared to go public on matters where proper process is not being followed and standards are not being applied evenly. Recent examples of his work included the tazering of a goat by Police, double bunking in prisons, a crime of torture where a patient was suffering from dementia and was locked up for an extended period, without proper medical support. It was a great pleasure to have Peter back to talk to us and we thank him sincerely for giving us the time from his extremely busy schedule.
Alex, another Honorary member, who now lives in Nelson, was able to provide members with an update on St Judes School in Tanzania. St Johns Rotary have been sponsoring students at St Judes for several years and Alex and his wife Wendy have championed our support over for many years - many thanks to you both. It was great to hear that the school is doing so well and prospering.
We were also delighted to welcome Honorary Member David to the meeting. David was able to update the meeting on activities in the South Island attended by St Johns Rotary past members. This group includes David and Alex as well as Andy and Mary Ann and Mike Henry - you can only imagine the what the social calendar looks like.!!!