How are you all holding out at the moment? It’s a busy time for the Club with more to come with the Rotary Foundation Auction & Dinner Fundraiser Evening on May 4th. I just wish to thank you all for being a.m.a.z.i.n.g! You have got in behind all this and I just want to say a massive thank you to you ALL.
Speaking of the Rotary Foundation fundraiser, as you know, we have Peter Hillary and local LSAR pilot Jason Laing as the guest speakers, which we are very excited about. The event is completely sold out and, due to a large waiting list, we obtained an extra 10 tickets which are gone. The speakers are definitely a big drawcard. We have some exciting auction items that will excite the room and we have Wanaka comedian Dan Brader as MC who will get the room buzzing and bidding! It’s going to be a fantastic night and again, thank you to all the members who are supporting this event with either donations or purchasing tickets or both! An Auction preview email will be emailed to all ticket holders on Wednesday 28th April.
Thanks to David Broomfield, Derek Bulman and Neil Dempsey who finally won the 1.3kg Rainbow trout David Carter donated from his catch of the day. After earlier relisted winning bids by David and Derek, the trout finally went to Neil and we raised $60, just like that! Thanks again to DC.
The Bunnings BBQ events continue to be a great success and we have received some great feedback from the public. I think they are enjoying seeing our ‘Rotary faces’ and not just hearing about our work and our generous donations that we make. It’s pretty awesome and I have to say, that when I was helping last Sunday and we all had our new Club Polos on, boy did we look good! Our Polos and aprons and our Rotary wheel hanging from the BBQ …. it was fantastic! The members who worked on the first 3 events the previous weekend had a blast and hung out with Jeff Wilson and Justin Marshall and Peter Hillary! Its great fun and this is what Rotary is all about - getting out and about and being seen in our community AND in the Mountain Scene!! Check this out! https://www.scene.co.nz/digital-edition/?edition=MSC_2021_04_22 Page 16
My thanks go out to Ross Beal for organising it all ... but who has actually now abandoned us to go on holiday! Luckily John Taylor and the various team leaders will make sure things continue to run smoothly. I’ll give the final figure we raise next Tuesday at the meeting and in the next Bulletin.
The next BBQ’s are - SATURDAY 24th April 8.30am -12.15pm, SUNDAY 25th, ANZAC Day 1 - 4pm and MONDAY 26th April 8.30am - 4pm.
Our guest speaker on 13th April was Paul Hollingsworth, General Manager of Queenstown Solar. He gave us an educational overview of the benefits of solar energy for our homes and how the future of solar energy may look. For more info and to get an obligation free home assessment, click here www.queenstownsolar.co.nz
Paul is also interested in joining Rotary and will be coming along over the next few weeks, so please make yourself known to Paul and get to know him. He’s a super young guy who I think will add value to our club.
This week we had our elected MP Joseph Mooney speak to the club. He’s only been in the job for 6 months and has a lot to learn about the corridors of the Beehive and how things ‘work’. It seemed to me, when comparing other MP’s we have had in to speak, that when you are ‘in power’ you have much more to offer an audience than as a newbie backbencher of the Opposition. Joe admitted he doesn’t get much opportunity to have a say, but is proud of his use of time so far getting out and meeting many people including the farmers and business owners who make up his very large geographic Southland-Clutha electorate.
I have a few observations from this week, one of them being the noise from the other side of the restaurant and I know, for a few members sitting at the back near this, it was very hard to hear Joe. This was disappointing and frustrating. I will trial a different layout next time that we are in the large restaurant. Also I do try my best to get you home on time and, this week, we ran over time. Therefore I need to keep a better eye on my watch for both the speaker and members' question time. But it is good to get involved as you do each week with speaker Q & A time. In saying this, it is good to have our personal opinions while remembering to stick to the topic, keeping things relevant and of course being respectful of others in the room.
Lastly, I would like to share an email I received today, which I thought was rather nice -
Dear President Lee-Ann Lines,
This is Suren Poruri, Past President from RI District 3150, from India.
Your rotary club of Queenstown was chartered on 18-Apr-1944 , which is today.
I would like to extend my warm wishes to you and to all your club members on this joyous moment.
Rotary is the only organization which has global foot print and is working towards happy communities across the world with it's noble initiatives.
Thanks to our rotary club founder Rtn Paul Harris, we are able to make a difference in the communities where we live.
Looking forward to working with your club on service projects .
Thanks and regards
Suren Poruri
District Best Club President for year 2017-18
Secunderabad West
RI district 3150
HAPPY 77th BIRTHDAY EVERYONE!
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