The Change-over is complete and big congratulations to Robyn and Hugh for organising a fun and memorable evening last Friday.
A total of 57 were in attendance; 33 Members and 24 Guests including one Horse, better known as Sir Tristram, (ST). More about ST later in the story.
As one of her last duties of her Presidential reign, President Robyn welcomed all to this special dinner. Robyn then shared her thoughts on how the year had gone and noted that it was one of highlights with a few hiccups along the way. Although Covid19 tried very hard to derail the year, Zoom came to the rescue, and Robyn's ability to move between physical and virtual meeting formats, highlighted her leadership skills.
She shared with us a photographic record of the many highlights, events, activities, projects and meetings that were achieved during the year and she paid tribute to her Board, Executive Support team and all members who ensured "small acts made a big impact".
Robyn also acknowledged that without the enormous support that she received from First Man Tony, her daughters and their partners, she would not have got through the year. As she thanked her team, two of the night's memorable soundbites were; - "Thank you Alex for completing your duties, your accounting skills are quite unbelievable", and
- When thanking Hugh for his input to the Board as President Elect, she also "thanked him for actually turning up tonight"!
Although dinner was beckoning, Robyn had one more formal announcement and that was the presentation of a Paul Harris Sapphire Award to Graham Fabian. Graham's continued support of our club and our activities has been huge and includes; allowing the foyer of his store to be a collection point for the Foodbank, catering at no cost for offsite meetings, provision of Golf Tournament goody bags, donation of Quiz Night food and wine, significant cash donations to Foodbank and to our club, and the list goes on.Surprised, but delighted to be accepting the award, Graham quite simply said that he wanted to give back to the community because he can, and that he has found that the RCSJ is the ideal platform to do this. Congratulations Graham, so well deserved.
To celebrate his award, Graham then started the annual chair throwing competition!
Following dinner, President Robyn's last official duty was to complete the Change-over by presenting incoming President Hugh with his "Presidential Pin" and the Chain of Office", also fondly known as the clubs necklace! Hugh then shared his thoughts on what he would like to see our club achieve in the year ahead, and he looks forward to working with all club members to achieve his goal of being "Champions in the Community" He then introduced his new Board and the Executive Support Team. This team are introduced in a separate story below.
Hugh finished his first official comments to the club by extending a big thank you to last year's Board and support team and to Robyn and her family. To cap off the formalities, Hugh presented "Past President Robyn" with a caricature as a memento of her very successful year as President. 
As mentioned above, we had one horse turn up for Change-over. It was Sir Tristram. ST was an Irish bred Thoroughbred racehorse who stood at stud in Cambridge New Zealand, where he sired an extraordinary 45 Group One winners, including three Melbourne Cup winners. ST was looked after throughout the evening by his very skilled attendant, Helen, who did a wonderful job controlling her Champion ST, who was quite frisky all evening. It was no surprise that ST and Helen won the Best Dressed "Champion Award", the theme of the evening.
Throughout the evening Sophie Garrett entertained us with the beautiful sound of the Harp. Sophie is Tony and Robyn's niece. She lives in Orakei and is a University of Auckland student.
To see more photos of the evening please click on "Read More" below;
