President Pat:
Happy Birthday:
Pauline Cowens 8 November
Club Anniversaries
Ron Devlin 12 years
James Clague 2 years
Monique Edlinger 2 years
Julie Hignett 2 years
Stuart Pedersen 9 years
Stephen Dorrington 15 years
- Bill Holland is doing well and Sally is getting used to her crutches
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Big thank to those who helped with the Blind collection. This raised $721.30 which was nearly 3 times that which was collected for Red Puppy Day. There must be a moral in there somewhere
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Michele again appealed for at least one more host family to help out at the end of the month with the Brazilian Fellowship Exchange Team. THIS IS NOW BECOMING URGENT. Please contact Michele for more information.
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Wayne added another appeal for volunteers to mann 2 hour slots at Duncan and Ebbett during Treasured Art and also for people to make up a 'fun' bowls team on Thursday evenings (5.30) at Matua Bowling Club. Whites/experience not necessary. Club bar prices and a sausage sizzle
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Kathy then gave her weekly update on Treasured Art. WE NEED MORE PEOPLE TO REGISTER TO ATTEND THE AUCTION - PEOPLE WITH A LOVE OF ART BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY - PEOPLE WITH MONEY. The committee has worked extremely hard but they can only do so much. This is one hell of an event - it is up to ALL OF US to support them.
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Glenys gave an update on Vinna's progress. Her new shoes - special ones with a 2 - 3" heel build up - arrived this week and she is delighted with them. Rumour has it that she may even be sleeping in them! She is due to go home on 21 November
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Join in the Santa Run around The Mount on 5 December - all in aid of the Graeme Dingle Foundation
Rosalie Crawford then became our newest member, having been inducted (see Sergeant's bit later!) by President Pat. David Robinson gave the Kaitiaki Welcome on behalf of Rotary International.
So, on to our speaker! Barry Muir it was, he of Barry Muir's Furniture Gallery (Five seven double five double 0 eight) and long time member of Mount Maunganui Rotary. A retailer all his working life, Barry recounted his job history with a degree of emotion in places. He started at Greerton Furnishings in 1948, having worked there as a schoolboy (Tauranga Boys) and was soon offered a permanent position, which he vowed not to take up until he had made the 1st XV. He was taught a brilliant mnemonic - Aloysius Cholmondeley Chipwhistle - Ask, Choose, Concentrate, his example of which being 'That lounge suite - would you like it in green?' Then SHUT UP - let the customer make the next move. Barry won a scholarship to David Jones in Sydney as a senior executive trainee and got to wear a tin carnation (why am I drawn to Grace Brothers and Are You Being Served? - Ed). He 'did' lots of furniture fairs at Tauranga racecourse and once sold 14 waterbeds in one day! Back at Greerton Furnishings, they had 5 mobile showrooms and had to generate 15 calls a day. Another OE was to Monteray to study advertising and promotions. At its height, the company employed 110 staff and generated a turnover of $1m/month. Impressive. They were taken over by Smiths City who promptly went down the pan but came out with credit in that they paid off most of their debts, even though it took 10 years in some cases. Barry then moved into premises in Newton Street as Furniture Save and teamed up with 2 others - Carpet Save and Curtain Save and thence on to the Mount on Maunganui Road, 'just before and opposite the Mount Movie Theatre' and the rest, as they say, is history.
A fascinating insight into the world of retailing.
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Raffle won by Dan Allen-Gordon
Sergeant Stuart fined
- himself for giving Coby Duggan from Volvo a bottle of wine for his thank you following his talk (and then taking it off him!)
- Rosalie for announcing that she to be induced today
- Greg and his partner for winning various prizes. Then he lost the plot by rescinding the fine on some pretext, re-instigating it and then showing a photo of a Grumpy Greg and finally saying he wasn't going to fine him. He finished with a risqué story about Paul Keating.........
AND FINALLY:
Rather than having a verbal report at each meeting, Club Directors will be providing a report for the Bulletin by rotation so here's the first one:
We are delighted this week to achieve the District Grant supporting Threads Across The Pacific (TATP) into Vanuatu. Due to Gerry Brownlee $5 million injection into RotaryNZ our goal for the next district application is to start working on finding a larger project and harness other Rotary clubs' support. Anna's recent visitation to other clubs will help greatly in achieving this down the track. As always, we wish to focus on projects which create impact and to also seek projects which encourage individual members' involvement. We invite all members to come to Vanuatu on the 23rd March 2019 to start our new project with (TATP). We continue to sell our "Black Toilet Paper" as our over-all International Fundraiser. Soon we will be supporting Brett's involvement in Polio with another fundraising idea. Plus, just recently we assisted Good Neighbour with connecting them with a local backpacker that wanted to give away 6- 7 bikes
Julie Hignett
International Service
