Visitors: Georgia Healy (2014 Rotary Exchange Student), Burkhard Gronwald (Rotarian from Rotary Willich, Germany, was host father for Georgia in 2014) and Theo Banks
Welcome–from President Stephen Dorrington
Guest Speaker – Erin and Huru Symons
Notices & Announcements
Notice One – Charity Golf Day 6 November organised by Tauranga Te Papa Rotary to raise funds for the development of K Valley and the Rotary Centennial Trust. Sponsorship opportunity available. Player entries must be made by 25 October 2026. For more information or a copy of the flyer email rotaryclubtaurangatepapa@gmail.com
Notice Two – Huru Symons was thanked for helping with the Rotary driving awareness course run at Bethlehem Baptist.
Notice Three - Rotary Quiz is being held 17 November
Notice Four - Friday Fives is happening next Friday, Tauranga Club
Notice Five - Christmas puddings are back on the menu - $25 each. We are looking for a new person to market them.
Announcement – Stephen Dorrington announced that this week we are celebrating the “great historic fiction” of the 8-hour day. Stephen said he feels a great sense of wellbeing as Friday is his charity day with giving time to Rotary and then he will be giving his time to the corporate world
Guest speakers
Georgia Healy – was sent by our club to Germany in 2014 on a Rotary Student Exchange, and has since graduated from University of Waikato in Tauranga with a bachelor’s degree, now lives in Auckland, and last week got married. Her Rotary host father Burkhard Gronwald from Germany came to attend her wedding.
Burkhard Gronwald - a “dentist by profession and Rotarian by passion”, joined his Rotary Willich club in 2007. His passion is youth exchange, and he was the youth exchange officer of the club for many years, with Georgia being the first student they hosted. He now coordinates all youth exchanges between Germany and Brazil. He was also a youth exchange student himself. He said it’s the first time he has attended a breakfast Rotary meeting and presented Stephen with a banner from his club.
Stephen and Warren Banks both reflected on meeting up with their Rotary students
Stephen introduced speakers Huru and Erin Symons who recently were inducted into the Rotary Club of Tauranga Sunrise
Huru Symons spoke about his early years living in a small farming community, starting college in 1975, then moving to Auckland in 1978. Living in a hostel he found work in West Auckland in an auto-electrician’s workshop. Repairing forklifts, playing rugby in Counties, and meeting Erin in about 1979.
Erin Symons continued, telling about her beginnings, born in Fielding and raised in Kimbolton with a population of “about 12”. “Then we upsized to Thames”. Erin met Huru when she was about 15 or 16 when he came down to Thames with his rugby team. In Auckland, she then worked in a brewery, in the construction industry, delivered Chinatown deliveries, and was a chauffeur, while also raising children.
