Hi to you all,
What a fantastic month this has been with two hugely successful back to back Rotary events with great support from our network of community organisations. A big congratulations to Past President and projects leader, Allan Frazer, for his drive and commitment which ensured great support for our Quiz Night on 12 November at One Fat Bird and two nights later for our inaugural Karori Employee Appreciation Awards.
After our Quiz in which 14 teams took part, it was announced we had taken over $2,500 from proceeds for the evening in support of ‘Lifting the Lid’ on mental illness. We will be checking off the money, less expenses, and looking to see if we can top it up to forward to the Rotary project team for ‘Lifting the Lid’ counselling services at secondary and intermediate schools in the capital.
The Awards night was a wonderful event, again thank you to Allan and other members who pulled this together working with the Karori Business Association. The Cultural Centre was packed at Samuel Marsden School, many very happy faces and congratulations around the room to the various organisations that sponsored the awardees and how the event flowed. Everyone went away happy. A good beginning to stage this again.
It was great to get Allan’s near neighbour and intrepid traveller Jamie Fitzgerald, to entertain us with many exciting ventures he has been on, including to the Antarctic and rowing across the Atlantic, being in a winning two-man team contest with several other boats in the race, that achieved this huge challenge in difficult conditions at times.
It is great also to convey our warmest congratulations to Danielle Shannahan and her team at Zealandia on being named New Zealand’s top tourism attraction winning the prestigious Air New Zealand Supreme Tourism Award and also winning the Excellence Award for Small-Medium Businesses. Rotary in Wellington, especially through our Club which has had a long association with the development and eco-protection measures at Zealandia, earning great public endorsement both within New Zealand and overseas. More on these awards in the bulletin.
Our next challenge comes next Tuesday when at our AGM we can hopefully select a President-Elect for our Club for the 2024-2025 Rotary year. Please think about this hard fellow Rotarians as our leadership, with a huge commitment to our local community as we have demonstrated for so long is in danger if we don’t have succession and continued strong leadership at the top.
I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday.
Regards
President Jay.
