President Pat welcomed everyone.
Dan introduced his son Sam, who is running a marathon tomorrow.
Pat introduced Chris Dever who is an ex-Lion looking at joining Rotary.
Pat thanked all the Alzheimer’s helpers – he noted that enough money had been raised for room hire for a support group for three months.
Pat also acknowledged all the help from all those who attended the Home Show, especially Anna and Wayne who also did their bit on the Alzheimer’s collection.
MATTERS DISCUSSED AT LAST BOARD MEETING
Pat updated us on matters discussed at the last Board meeting, while noting that the Minutes of the Board meeting are (or will be) available on ClubRunner. Pat’s comments included:
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Club financials for the year ended 30 June 2018 have been approved and will be distributed to members.
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The Board has reviewed some activities which were supported by the Club including Trees for Survival, and the Youth Development Trust.
Barbara reported:
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There will be a collection for the Breast Cancer Foundation on 12 December – list to be circulated.
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The Bay Oval Trust has again asked us to help with rubbish collection at its cricket matches this summer. The first match is on 27 December and the last on 28 January (5 games). She will be looking for volunteers.
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The Board has approved grants (E&OE):
Merivale Trust $3,000; Homes for Hope $1,000; Tauranga Musica $1,000; Coastguard $1,000.
Dave Woodhouse noted that $880 was netted from the sale of Savealife products at the Home Show and that this was part of exposing Savealife to support further sales.
Brett Hobson spoke about Rotary Foundation.
Rotary Foundation was set up in 1917 with an initial donation of US$26.50. It has since spent some $3 billion on projects, half of which has been spent on the program to eradicate Polio. For information on this program, you can search polioeradications (not a Rotary website) or endpolionow (which is a Rotary website).
The Polio programme came out of the 1990 UN Summit for Children. The Summit came up with nine global health goals, one of which was global eradication of Polio by 2000. Rotary International decided to participate in the polio elimination program. Polio is deemed to be eradicated in a country when there have been no cases for three full years. It is now 2018 and Polio is endemic in only three countries: Pakistan, which has been making good progress, and in Afghanistan and Nigeria, which still have problems.
A total of about $15 billion has been spent on Polio eradication to date, of which about 10% has been spent by Rotary Foundation. Rotary also provides community connections to help with the program. About 2.6 billion people are immunised each year, of whom about 1 billion are children.
24 October 2018 is World Polio Day.
Ron noted that he is putting together an article about Polio in conjunction with World Polio Day. He is looking for an opportunity to interview people who have had some direct connection with Polio suffering.
Ken White introduced Nicola Wearnes as our speaker. He noted that Nicola has been a runner from an early age. She hails from Te Kuiti and has run 17 marathons. She is a mentor for Project K and is an ambassador for the Arthritis Society.
Nicola confirmed that she has always been an enthusiastic
runner. During her 30’s, in a time of stress in her life, she contracted Rheumatoid Arthritis which she said had a brutal effect on her body. For a while there, she couldn’t do very much at all. Since then, her Rheumatoid Arthritis has gone into remission, to the extent that she can now live with it/around it and with medication. The medication lowers her immunity, so she is more at risk in other areas.
Nicola told us about two particular events. The first was a Greenland Marathon, the Arctic Polar Marathon which she “ran” about 2 ½ years ago. It is a 52km event which takes runners 10-16 hours, Nicola completed it in 12 hours. At the start line, they were kept waiting for about one minute – the temperature was around -30oC. Nicola recounted that she was wearing some six layers of clothing, googles and three pairs of gloves, along with specialised shoes, with running crampons. The water container she was wearing on her back had a species of anti-freeze, which didn’t work, so she carried 2 litres of frozen water on her back for the whole event. Her food also froze, to the benefit of a nearby Arctic Fox which was given her muesli bar. At the end of the event, participants were lowered into a hot tub with a reindeer sausage and a beer.(Yep - that's what she said - the mind boggles!)
Despite the pleasures of the event, Nicola reported that Greenland is a wonderful place and recommended it as a destination (with or without doing the event). For anyone doubting the impact of climate change, Greenlanders have culled 90% of the huskies they use for pulling dog sleds because they no longer need them to get access to fishing grounds.
The other event Nicola told us about was the Tensing Hilary run in Nepal. Her description of the Nepal event made the Greenland event sound relatively straightforward. In order to participate in the event, one must first trek into base camp which is at an elevation of 5,800 metres and involves a succession of long days trekking up hills while suffering from things like altitude sickness and food poisoning. Once you get to base camp, the event is advertised as “a downhill run” but this is misleading. There were three deaths on the event, and 14 runners were evacuated from base camp before the event even started. In general, it is not a safe place to go, and going to base camp should not be regarded as a “walk in the hills”.
Despite all this, Nicola reported that she very much enjoys these events. The people who do them don’t go so much for the racing as for the places they are held, and the people who meet there. Her next race is in the Sahara.
Rhonda was the sergeant. She talked about Spring, and how it is a time to celebrate the lengthening of days and fertility in general. She tricked a number of people into admitting they were born in about June, which is apparently somehow linked to Spring….
Rhonda ran through a number of interesting rituals in other countries to welcome the onset of Spring:
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In Poland, they throw a doll into a river;
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In Switzerland, they burn a (stuffed) fireman at a stake; (Ron Devlin - NEVER go to Switzerland in Spring)
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In Bulgaria, they have a cranky old woman who needs to be appeased, but nevertheless gets hung from the side of a building; and
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In Bosnia, they have a festival involving scrambled eggs.
In New Zealand, we make do with things like gardening festivals. Rhonda noted that the Pagan site is down, so she was unable to report on what the Pagans get up to. It came down to the fact that for us, our notable Spring events are spraying Onehunga weed and putting our clocks forward this weekend!
President Pat closed the meeting with some reminders:
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The guided tour of the Elms is on Sunday;
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Sunday week is Barry’s world premiere and
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The speaker next Friday is Kevin Atkinson, who is speaking on the housing crisis in New Zealand.
