Visitors: Lloyd Davies (past club President), Judy Colville, Meryl Noyes, Nathan Tapper.
President Elect Chris Dever… Welcome - always a beautiful day in the Bay according to Chris….
An upside to Global Warming perhaps?
Birthdays etc – Lynda Burch appeared keen to be notching another year up. No other milestones to report.
Robbie Burns Birthday Celebration proved to be a successful night. The Haggis was addressed, the pipes played, toasts raised and the whisky drunk. Even a chance to try out the Highland Fling for those who had lost all inhibitions by the end of the evening.
Mount Festival of Multisport–Steve Read thanks all those involved in marshalling this event. Ten members marshalled at the Mount Multisport Event raising $640.
Bob’s Barbie – is coming up. Provisional date of the 7th March. This clashes with a game of rounders scheduled for Bay Oval the same evening. Bob will see if one or tother event can be moved. Watch this space.
Barry Fredheim clarified Paul Brljevich’s situation. He judged there may have been some confusion after Paul’s valedictory address. Paul has apparently transferred to the Papamoa Club, not resigning from Rotary altogether. No doubt we will still be able to catch up with Paul and Jenny at conference!
Kids Beach Day – The Merivale Community Centre took 15 youngsters to the beach and had a wonderful day. Sun, surf, seaweed served with lashings of ice cream, chips and pizza. Claudia (Kelly?), world champion surf lifesaver gave the kids a talk about getting involved in her sport - hopefully inspiring one or two. A great day was had by all.
Collections – Wendy advises we are down for the Heart Foundation on the 19th Feb and the Child Cancer Appeal on the 26th
Guest Speakers – Lloyd Davies, as a past club president is
well known to many of the longer serving members. He arrived wearing a different hat, and now sporting a distinguished ponytail. Lloyd now has a role with Literacy Aotearoa, an organisation providing literacy and numeracy programmes for some of the 1.3M New Zealanders who struggle in this area. 43% of us are at a level below that required to participate fully in society.
Funded by the Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Social Development, they develop, promote and deliver programmes to about 8000 learners.
Judy and Meryl were able to give us some heart-warming success stories and anecdotes about their students Many small successes lead to large triumphs. Sounds like a bit of fun and laughter in there too. They also thanked the Club for the dictionaries and calligraphy from Warren Banks.
If you know someone who could benefit from one of their programmes contact details are:
Ph: 0800 678 910
Web: www.literacy.org.nz
In the “There is always one….” category, question time led to Andy Cameron asking the literacy provider why “Lloyd starts with two Ls?”. He was quickly cut off before he could ask why Uranus is called so.
Raffle – Paul Belcaster.
Sergeant – Henry Kayser tells us Auckland Anniversary is kind of boring – clearly never having experienced the Waitemata on the appointed day.
He asked members which other significant events we may have attended – The list was long: Munich Beer Festival, St Patricks Day in Kilkenny, Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The End of Ede, Passover in Israel, Soak Day at Massey University etc. Someone might have let the cat out of the bag with a mention of the Japanese Boy’s Festival though. Not sure what that involved.
Parting Thought: James Clague
“He who wishes to be heard, will always whisper"
