On Tuesday 24 November we have our Annual General Meeting. We will table our annual accounts and reports for discussion. Most importantly we will need to select a President-elect for the 2021-2022 Rotary year. That will be our Rotary Centennial year in New Zealand, so an exciting time ahead in Rotary especially in our district.
We require a quorum of 11 to run the meeting, please make every effort to attend. You may appoint a proxy by writing to our secretary Barry Taylor, barry.taylor3@me.comour
Following the AGM, we will have other normal business to conduct. This will include our social programme and project plans to engage our members and friends in Rotary.
This is a major fund raiser for the club, we have lots to sell. The picture says it all. Let me know if you need advertising material.
Please help our 2020 Christmas Puddings campaign by getting orders for family and friends and through your workplaces.
This is a great product and helps our funding very considerably for future community projects. We are hoping for success in our Karori Mall sales in December, and through our contacts with other clubs and corporates.
We joined forces again with Karori Lions to hold the annual book fair at the Karori Baptist Church on 13 and 14 November. Takings this year were fractionally up on 2019, largely through increasing our prices on some categories.
It is interesting that Fridays continue to produce better sales than Saturdays in our local area, almost twice the takings in cash and Eftpos flowed through on the Friday between noon and 8pm. Although we had hoped to sell more books we are in line with other club book fairs in the region.
Despite the large commitment of time and labour, we enjoy working with our Lions colleagues on this venture and the profile our respective organisations are able to get in our local community and beyond. Once expenses are paid we are hoping to have in excess of $2.300 net to each club to put to community projects, in particular our support commitment to the new Wellington Children’s Hospital.
We were very fortunate that Sharon Zollner, ANZ Chief Economist, was able to join us at our final business breakfast for 2020. Sharon is in great demand as a commentator on the economy up and down the country, and she certainly had her audience at the Karori Park Sports Café glued to her every word throughout a 40 minute, off the cuff presentation, on the state of the world and what’s ahead for New Zealand, in an address entitled “Fortress New Zealand”.
She described our situation in New Zealand currently as being “weird”, with mixed messages in the marketplace, banks doing well, 5% of our population reeling and the other 95% generally ok at the moment. Right now the feeling was more like a war rather than a recession, which is still to come.
She praised the New Zealand Government on lockdown control against covid but said it was too soon to say we had dodged the bullet. She talked about our strengths and weaknesses as a country – having a good chance of elimination of the virus through an early introduction of a vaccine in 2021, resilience to global food prices, low fiscal debt starting point and low corporate debt. On the other hand we have an economy dependent on tourism, immigration for key skill jobs, and high household debt.
Sadly, the impacts are hitting everyone unevenly across all markets in our economy.
She best summed up by saying the prize for beating Covid 19 ( twice) will be a recession, that we will take it with the usual feedback loops that will kick in between unemployment, spending, housing and construction, and an economy that is a slow ship to turn around, especially with fiscal brakes on. Hence her belief we are in the phoney war stage at present in New Zealand.
Rotary Karori Past President Jim Johnston is in the news again as the winner of the BNZ Supreme Award at the KiwiNet Research Commercialiation Awards 2020.
Congratulation Jim on this great achievement. The citation follows.
Professor Jim Johnston, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington is a world-renowned inorganic and materials chemist and applied scientist. Professor Johnston is passionate about adding value to industry and the New Zealand economy through high quality research. He has pursued the commercial application of his research as a matter of course, founding a number of innovative companies and industry partnerships as a result.
Professor Johnston has either founded, or been involved with, countless new ventures and technologies throughout his long and outstanding research career. These include spin-out companies Wetox Limited, Noble Bond Limited and, most recently, Inhibit Coatings Limited.
During his extensive and much-awarded research career, Professor Johnston has spent the majority of it at the interface between academia and industry.
He has worked closely with businesses in New Zealand and overseas to utilise applied chemistry, materials science and nanotechnology to make new high-value products and generate new chemical process technologies that can be taken to market where they can help to meet business needs and create impact.
In addition to his success with research and commercialisation, Professor Johnston is equally passionate about developing his undergraduate and postgraduate students, nurturing them both academically and commercially, and making both career pathways available to them.
Professor Johnston is a textbook example of what can happen when excellent researchers are also committed to commercialising their work.
Our meeting on 10 November was an enjoyable occasion having 18 members of Karori Lions join us at Marsden for an annual dinner together and to welcome our guest speaker David Shanks, New Zealand’s Chief Censor. David is a highly respected business leader with wide experience in both private and public sector including time as Chief Legal Adviser for the State Services Commission and the Ministry of Social Development. He gave us a comprehensive picture of the work of the Classifications Office which he heads and the challenging world of social media, TV, film, games, videos and written material.
As David said to us, the challenge for the Censor and his office is getting balance between individual rights and what is perceived to be wrong behaviour reflected throughout the world and in our own country.
He talked about pressures on young people, the growing amount of pornography and violence in communities, and increasing rates of suicide. Very useful handout material gave us an insight into the education messages being imparted in New Zealand around conversations we need to have going forward, showing respect, listening to concerns , learning about the perils of social media, and building patience to resolve issues affecting all ages in society.
Club Christmas Function with past members and Rotarians from the Mt Victoria and Courtenay Place Clubs.
Tuesday 26 January, Social Event With Tawa Rotary
A combined meeting with the Rotary Club of Tawa to Wrights Hill tunnels, followed by a meal at the entrance to the tunnels. Note this will be an early start 5.30pm for an organised tour of the tunnels.
Thursday 18 Februry at Karori Park Cafe
The first Rotary/ANZ Business Breakfast for 2021, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson.
