For me the big Rotary event was the D9940 Conference in Carterton. This is a great opportunity to meet with people that want to take action in their communities. The first person I ran into was Coral Aitcheson, first woman president of our club. We had a good catch up and discussion about her time in the club.
Friday night was an open air meet and greet at the Cobblestones Museum. This was an opportunity to meet new people on a beautiful night under the trees in the court yard.
After a video welcome from Holger Knaack, the Rotary International President, we listened to some stand out speakers. Amongst them Paul Wood spoke about the 'Prison Of The Mind'. Eva Hart spoke about her time as a Rotary International Scholar. Mark Huddleston from Australia spoke about his analysis of Rotary in Australia. Martin Bosley spoke about his life in the food industry and the work he is doing in New Zealand prisons preparing inmates with skills for their release. Michelle Tanner and Professor Michael Baker spoke about their work with vaccines and Covid-19.
Of course there was plenty of discussion about district projects. Chief amongst these were the Wellington Childrens' Hospital and Rotary Gives Every Child A Future. We have a lot of work to do and I take up the Childrens Hospital project later in this bulletin.
Of course it wasn't all work. The dinner on Saturday night featured a singer counting down the decades. For each decade the clubs formed stood up. It was a great pleasure to represent Karori for the 1980s alongside Port Nicholson. Finally for the 10th decade it was the turn of our Centenary Club to take a bow.
Deputy Prime Minister, Grant Robertson, at our first business breakfast for the year on 18 March gave us some sobering messages around Covid 19 and the ability of our economy to withstand the pressures we have been through, to be tracking well through this first half of 2021. This was an outstanding event to be followed by Professor Michael Baker in May. We expect this to be another sellout.
We are always pleased to host our science students from Marsden who attend the Rotary National Science Forum each year in January. This is a flagship Rotary programme for us and we were delighted to meet Victoria Jackson, Isabel Possenniskie and Michelle Gu at our Club meeting at Marsden on 23 March.
On Tuesday 13 April, we will welcome Anna Roberts the Manager of Enliven, Huntleigh, who will talk about retirement independent and care living and how things have been going at their complex on the main road in Karori.
Best wishes, Phil