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Rotary Hutt City breakfast meetings
Meetings are held 7am to 8.30 am on the first and third Wednesday of the month at Boulcott's Farm Heritage Golf Club, Military Road, Lower Hutt. Please RSVP to chrissi@roll.nz.
For those of you who have not pre-paid, breakfast continues to cost $25 per person, payable on arrival to Chrissi Walker this coming week.
Members, don't forget to check the Duties Roster (Meeting Responsibilities) below for your nominated duty for our next meeting on the 3rd of June.
Meeting Responsibilities
Greeter
Tatham, Peter
Payment Taker
Walker, Chrissi
Reception Desk
Xie, Brad
Opening thought
Markham, Michael
5 min What is my Business?
Dong, Robert
Intro to Speaker
Cherian, Ganesh
Thanks to Speaker
Adams, Linton
Quizlett (6 questions about your industry)
Barker, Andy
Closing thought
Peterson, Charles
President's Report
Kia ora e te whanau,
Hard to believe we’re almost in June. The days are getting shorter and it’s just that little bit harder to get up in the dark on a Wednesday morning for our breakfast meeting. That said, we’ve got some great speakers coming up, so do keep an eye on the website – www.rotaryhuttcity.org.nz as they’re all listed there so you can plan ahead. If someone particularly piques your interest do try and bring a guest or two along who might also be interested.
Richard and Linton are underway with the Cans for a Cause collection for the Foodbank. This is a Rotary National and International drive so it’s great to be involved and I encourage those of you with businesses, or who work with lots of colleagues, to get together and promote can collection. Be as competitive with your co-workers as possible, to see who can collect the largest number of cans.
Andy Soper is looking for assistance with interviewing candidates for the Rotary Science Forum which is held in Auckland in January. Students from local high schools are selected to attend this in-house programme. It involves two Rotarians meeting a few students to then decide who attends. We usually sponsor two students. If you’d like to assist, please get in touch with Andy. (It’s not onerous!)
The end of June sees a change in President, and I’ll hand over the chains to Craig as he takes up the mantle for the 2026-27 year. We’ve got our Changeover dinner planned for Wednesday 24th June at 6pm. $60 pp. Venue TBC, but do please keep the date free. It’ll be lovely to celebrate my year together and to welcome Craig to the role. I’ll set up an Event on the website so you can register and prepay.
In the meantime, have a happy King’s Birthday Day on Monday – he did wave to me as he passed by after the opening of Parliament whilst I was in London earlier this month
A huge thank you from everyone at Te Omanga Hospice. Because of your time, energy, and generosity in volunteering at our Street Appeal, together we raised an incredible $48,353.25. This amount is the most we have raised at a Street Appeal in recent times. We are so grateful for this and know it wouldn't have been possible without your support.
Your support will make a meaningful difference and go directly towards caring for patients across the Hutt Valley and supporting their families, ensuring they receive compassionate, specialist palliative care when they need it, free of charge.
Your presence at the appeal also helped to create moments of connection within the community. We know you will have experienced some of that generosity and kindness during your time collecting.
Once again, thank you for being part of something so impactful for the Hutt Valley. We simply couldn’t do what we do without the generosity of you all.
Billy Graham, an honorary member of our Rotary Club was named "Hutt Valley Legend" at the 2026 NZCIS Hutt Valley Sports Awards earlier this month.
In 2006 Billy founded the Naenae Boxing Academy in 2006 (now part of the Billy Graham Youth Foundation), which uses sport (boxing) to teach the values of discipline, respect, and character to young men and women.
From those beginnings the Billy Graham Youth Foundation has gone on to establish boxing academies all over the country, changing lives every day of the year.
Notice of Special General Meeting to Adopt Bylaws.
Now that the club is reregistered under the new Incorporated Societies Act, we need to adopt bylaws with more details of how we operate. This is notice that a special general meeting will be held during our 17 June club meeting to do this. We will need a quorum of 21 active members.
Here is a link to the proposed bylaws, which you should read: RCHC 2026 Bylaws
Note particularly that the board has decided that an audit or review of the annual accounts should be optional, at the board’s discretion: Bylaw 8, Section 5. Also, the strict Rotary requirement to attend meetings can be softened, and that is done in Bylaw 11.
I want to thank Richard Nabarro for putting most of this together. It was a big job.
Fun at our last meeting with Gaylene's, "Who Am I" segment, Richard promoting the Cans for a Cause project (please collect canned food in first week of June to donate to the Foodbank) and Linton telling us about the opening of Te Ara Tupua, the new harbour walk/cycle way from Petone to Ngauranga last weekend.
Our guest speaker, Shirley-Anne Thornbury from Te Kura, the NZ Correspondence School, updated us on what they do and who they work with (with almost 30,000 students, they're the largest state school in the country!) and what they're doing in the Hutt.
Our members
Te Ara Tupua
Our guest speaker
Rotary meeting: 1st June
Neil Thornton, from the NZ comedy school is our speaker at our 1st of June meeting. Neil is an award-winning comedian, MC, writer and life-long teacher.
As a comedian, he cut his chops in the tough New York City comedy scene before moving to New Zealand with his husband in 2014. Since then, he's performed up and down New Zealand and all over the word, with sold-out shows in New York City, the Edinburgh Fringe, and Provincetown, not to mention everywhere from Auckland to Queenstown to bowling clubs in the middle of nowhere for confused sheep farmers.
In 2017 Neil founded the NZ Comedy School, helping a wonderfully diverse array of people find their unique voices through the art and craft of stand-up comedy.
We are looking forward to hearing from him and it should be a fun meeting.
Linton Adams was recently featured on the front page of the Summerset Scene magazine, with a four-page article appearing inside. The feature highlighted the many community projects he and wife, Heather, have supported over 35 years plus as a member of our club.
Among the Rotary projects highlighted in the article were the Hutt River Trail, which now offers more than 54 kilometres of walking and cycling paths, the planting of numerous trees, the annual Tree of Joy initiative, and support for the eradication of polio in India.
The article provided positive exposure for Rotary and an opportunity for readers to learn more about its community work, and perhaps to consider joining a Rotary club themselves. Thanks Linton for promoting our club and for raising the profile of Rotary with the Summerset community.
Rotary NZ Can Drive Challenge – Let’s Reach 1000 Cans!
We’ve decided to drive this cause even harder than we did last year — because sadly, the need is even greater this year.
Last year we donated approximately 500 cans to our local Hutt City Food Bank. More than 300 of those came from one incredibly generous non-club member, and with Linton punching well above his weight to help balance the scales.
So the challenge this year is simple:
Can we reach 1000 cans?
We CAN (pun intended) — but only if we all give this some thought and get behind the effort.
How You Can Help:
Share the information about the project with people you know (all members have been emailed individually).
Let’s Keep It Coordinated
To avoid doubling up, please let me know if you approach someone who is willing to help. Richard is keeping a spreadsheet of:
Who is helping
Which businesses or locations have been approached
Potential collection points
Collection Week: 1 June – 8 June Pick Up Day: Tuesday 9 June
I can help organise collection pick-ups if needed, to make things easier.
Thanks in advance, team. I’m looking forward to seeing your “CAN do” attitude in action and achieving an outstanding result together.
Cheers,
Richard Gibbens
A Reminder about upcoming events:
24th June: Club changeover 6pm. $60pp. Venue to be confirmed
District Changeover is on Saturday 27 June at 11 am. Boulcotts Farm
Remember to bring some loose change along to the meeting so you can contribute if you answer a Quizlett question incorrectly :), or wish to "Buy The Box".
If you should have any interesting stories about fellow Rotarians then please pass them onto Craig so he can share them at the meeting. Email: craig@packprod.co.nz
Payment is also now available by Eftpos onsite - no excuses!
