Last Week's Meeting: We had a good number of members at our meeting last Thursday, along with Pam Clarke, our long-standing Assistant District Governor, and our speaker John Barley. With his background as an insurance broker, John spoke about reducing risk in workplaces by becoming more conscious of relevant health & safety issues, and encouraging an “all in this together” culture.
This Week's Meeting: This Thursday, we are especially fortunate to be addressed by the 2017 NZ Innovator of the Year, Prof. Ed Gane from University of Auckland. Prof. Gane is Deputy Director of the NZ Liver Transplant Unit and will discuss his testing of new antiviral drugs for treatment of Hepatitis C – a blood-borne disease which causes inflammation of the liver. Over 50,000 people in NZ have the hepatitis C virus, although only half are thought to be currently diagnosed.
This week we will also welcome Cheri Joliffe as a new member of St Johns.
ChangeOver Meeting: Please RSVP promptly to Brian Fergus for our Change-Over evening on Thurs. 7 June, when we welcome our new president Allan Smith and his 2018/19 team of Directors.
Assistant Governor Pam Clarke attended our meeting this morning to make a very special presentation to the Club and Past President Ainie Kwok. Extremely well deserved recognition for everyone during Ainie's Presidential year.
John has been a long term insurance broker and now a business resilience consultant. In 2014 he founded RiteTrack specifically to mentor SMEs, that is, small and medium sized enterprises with free educational resources and events about safety, business productivity and resilience. He attended a seminar this year in Houston tilted ‘Safety Leadership: How to Drive Excellence and Beat the Competition’. So, how did John end up at this seminar? Well, none other than LinkedIn where published Amazon author Brian Feilkow, a US culture change expert contacted John.
John’s business is about guiding for growth by preventing loss of business. And it’s all in the patterns… Some of us found - well me - this philosophical nuance cerebrally challenging but the gist of it is that business owners do not truly understand their business – they know their business but do not understand their business which became apparent following the Christchurch earthquakes.
Neil and his family have been in NZ for 25 years having moved from Zimbabwe. He has dental practice in St Heliers and Neil said he always wanted to be a dentist. The advancement in dentistry has been expediential where 3D scanners are now used routinely in practice such as invisalign aligners (impressive name for invisible braces) and making their own crowns that no longer require several appointments or taking dental impressions with gob full of dental paste are all things of the past! Neil said he’s a bit of a petrol head and a Porsche fanatic so much so he owns a vintage 30year old car. His happy place is racing on one of the tracks such as Hampton Downs to get the adrenaline flowing particularly when they’re all lined up and ready to floor it!
St John's Rotary Club was one of the sponsors for this camp as a small number of attendees were from Glen Innes.
The TalkLink Trust 5th KiwiChat camp was held at Totara Springs near Matamata from the 25th to 29th April 2018. It was a fun packed event that saw 21 children from as far away as Central Otago attend with their families. As well as the 21 children using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools there were 18 siblings, and on the busiest day, a total of 130 people participated.
Click Read More to see the TalkLink Trust's report on this successful weekend camp.
Tom Street advises that our Club will have (potentially) up to 11 candidates attending RYLA this year. So, well done everyone who pushed and prodded applicants to apply for this great programme. Tom's and his team of RYLA interviewers were kept very busy!
Tom would like up to six (6) volunteers to help transport our RYLA participants out to Willow Park, from either their homes in Auckland or a designated meeting point. Our participants (including their gear) need to be at Willow Park Christian Camp (Eastern Beach) before 7.30am on Saturday 30 June. We also need six (6) volunteers to collect them a week later . Keep in mind you need to allow room for the adult participant and a large tramping/gear pack.
Please email Tom if you are able to assist as a Transporter.
My name is Charlotte Hoonhout, I've been brought in as an events assistant for this year's Multiple Sclerosis Society Street Appeal. I am reaching out to you to inquire about your interest in and availability to support us again this year as your Rotary has in the past. The 2018 Street Appeal will be on Friday, September 7th and Saturday, September 8th. We are still in the process acquiring sites for this year's appeal, but we are open and excited to hear any ideas that you may like to share with us or friends you would like to bring along to make this 2018 appeal the best yet! As you know, the street appeal raises valuable funds to facilitate multiple sclerosis research, education and support initiatives. But this would all be impossible without your support as volunteers to champion the appeal. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards, Charlotte
Anyone interested in volunteering to assist with this street appeal - please feel free to email Charlotte at: streetappealv1@gmail.com
Many Rotarian's were privileged to hear Dr Dickinson present at last year’s 9920 District Conference or have heard her at other functions. She is so inspiring, our Club is happy to give her latest project a plug – particularly as it has a ‘donation’ option which will appeal to many of us.
Did you join Rotary to do good things in the community?
You can help or join in all projects (whatever the committee), just contact the committee director and/or project team leader. In most cases, you can include family and friends.
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St John's Rotary Club was one of the sponsors for this camp as a small number of attendees were from Glen Innes.
Tom Street advises that our Club will have (potentially) up to 11 candidates attending RYLA this year. So, well done everyone who pushed and prodded applicants to apply for this great programme. Tom's and his team of RYLA interviewers were kept very busy!
