We welcome back Christine Hurley, from the Rotary Club of Wellington. Christine will speak about the Rotary immunisation programme, Rotary Gives Every Child A Future. This seeks to save lives by vaccinating 100,000 children, across nine Pacific Island countries. The programme is part of Rotary’s celebration of 100 years of service in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific.
Speakers – Marsden students who attended the National Science Forum in Auckland in January – previously postponed due to Covid 19 lockdown period.
Thursday 27 August, General Elections Meeting
Wellington Central candidates’ public meeting at Karori Normal School Hall at 7pm, organised by Karori Rotary and Karori Residents Association. This meeting will be held a week before ballot papers go out for the General Election on 19 September.
Friday and Saturday 4-5 September, Community Book Fair
Karori Community Book Fair at Karori Baptist Church, organised by Karori Lions and Karori Rotary. The Fair will run from noon to 8pm on the Friday and from 9am – 4pm on the Saturday.
Monday 7 September, Karori Youth Awards
Note we have moved our meeting from Tuesday 8 September to Monday 7 September. We will have dinner at Marsden and then attend the award ceremony at the Karori Baptist Church.
Tuesday 22 September at Marsden
This will be a club forum, an opportunity to review our progress and forward planning.
Saturday 3 October, Blood Pressure Campaign
We will be manning a stand in the Karori Mall.
Tuesday 13 October at Marsden
Our speaker will be Dr Matt Wheeler. Dr Wheeler received a D9940 RI Scholarship for medical studies in haematology. He has been working in Canada and will talk about his research.
Tuesday 27 October at Marsden
Official visit of Rotary District Governor Gillian Jones.
Tuesday 10 November at Marsden, Dinner With The Lions
We will host a combined dinner with Karori Lions. Our guest speaker will be the Chief Censor, David Shanks.
Plans are underway to restart the business breakfast program in September/October with speakers to be confirmed.
Following on from our help to Krystle Crimmins, along with support from other Rotary Clubs in District 9940 in funding and circulating Krystle’s publication on Epilepsy Aid Education for Schools, discussions are moving to see if we can become more fully engaged in assisting the Disability Sector in general nationwide as a project to take into our Rotary Centennial year.
David Watt and Krystle Crimmins have been meeting with other Rotarians at a District level and this has been taken up further with Immediate Past Governor John Mohi who has spent a considerable amount of his working career interfacing with the disability sector to looking to develop a strategy for Rotary engagement, which will include high level discussions with Government agencies and enlisting support from the other Rotary Districts in New Zealand.
There is quite a gap between the grass roots and policy making levels in this sector with an opportunity to help those whose employment and lifestyles are significantly affected by disability can get help to achieve their objectives.
Graeme Titcombe introduced our own member and Past President, Prof Jim Johnston, Professor of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Victoria University with a long list of outstanding achievements Jim has chalked up in an outstanding career to date in chemistry in New Zealand, including the Bayer Innovation Award in 2009 for Research and Development, Wellingtonian of the Year for Science and Technology in 2008, and the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry Industrial Chemical prize in the year prior, and several more recent prizes for achievements in his field of work in New Zealand.
Jim opened his address on the current energy scene in New Zealand by not offering his personal opinions to our energy challenges, but to give a comprehensive picture of the varying forms of energy being used and the facts as presented to us by Government reports and strategies up to 2030 and to 2050.
It was very clear from the picture Jim gave us of our long dependency on fossil fuels and the huge costs to industry and the nation, from the development of hydro dams and requirement for water, of electricity charges, and looking for alternative means of power that New Zealand still has a long way to go to step up to some of the more cleaner means of power delivery, namely the harnessing of geothermal power, the use of solar power and the development of wind power from wind farms across the country. Jim said we are clearly world leaders in the growth of geothermal power and this is this growth path that we need to watch closely over the next few decades in New Zealand.
Jim spent a considerable amount of his presentation on developments at Wairakei and the work that he has been doing there with his PhD students extracting silica from geothermal power generation to process into specialty silica products to be used as fertiliser additives on farms. This has been a very exciting development with very significant marketing returns for our agricultural industry and for export. Geothermal power and what we may gain from the further expansion of wind power will be closely watched.
Questions from members closed in on the strategies being set for New Zealand up to 2030 and 2050, very much dependent on our future political leadership. It certainly had members thinking deeply as we have yet to see how we are going to recover from covid 19 and the huge expenditure invested in our the economy for survival in the short term and how we progress from here towards a long term energy vision for New Zealand.
The Club has always enjoyed these presentations from Jim setting us up for important debates.
Following this presentation members were given an update on possible plans being discussed with the Wellington City Council around tree planting at Ben Burn Park, more information to come further meetings and consultation with residents in the area.
The Rotary Club of Karori extends its warmest congratulations to Michael Fagg, a former member and Past President of our Club, now with Otaki. Michael received a second Sapphire PHF pin from District Rotary at the changeover event in Masterton for his outstanding service as District Coordinator for fund raising and awareness for the eradication of Polio. Michael initiated many fund raising events for Polio and earned high respect for his energy in this area not only in District 9940, but throughout New Zealand and in Australia.
The Club looks forward to catching up with Michael and Heather at a social event in Karori in the near future and to extend to Michael best wishes on his further term as Assistant Governor for Kapiti and Horowhenua.
