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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 (commencing 5 February) at Boulcott's Farm Heritage Golf Club, Military Road, Lower Hutt.
Breakfast costs $25 per person, payable on arrival. Please RSVP to annagy91@gmail.com
Members, please check the Duties Roster (Management Responsibilities) below for your nominated duty for our next meeting on 5 February2025.
Look forward to seeing you there.
Meeting Responsibilities
Greeter
Brown, Allan
Reception Desk
Barker, Andy
Reception Desk
Soper, Andy
Opening thought
Geremia-Young, Anna
5 min What is my Business?
Ross, Brian
Intro to Speaker
Rowell, Bob
Thanks to Speaker
Xie, Brad
Quizlett (6 questions about your industry)
Longstaff, Carl
Closing thought
Carruth, Barry
President's Report
Well the year is well and truly underway now and I look forward to the challenges and opportunities 2025 might bring.
Recently a good number of our club members were present at Peter McCombs's funeral to hear firsthand what a true legend he was.
Tributes were made by Traffic Design Group (TDG) and Engineering NZ underpinning just how much Peter has contributed to both engineering and traffic management throughout the country.
Tony McCombs informed us that Peter was a wonderful caring family man, who enjoyed nothing more than family holidays.
Allan Brown then paid a wonderful tribute to Peter on behalf of our Rotary club highlighting Peter’s many qualities as a leader, delegator and ideas man that had contributed massively to our club fortunes over the 40 years he was in the club.
We will all miss Peter’s cunning ability to delegate and just get things done. Peter could be very persuasive and in fact it was the double act of Peter and Allan Brown that convinced Katrina and I into stepping up to take on the president’s role before we even realised what had just happened to us.
R.I.P Peter gone way too soon but not forgotten.
As I mentioned in my previous report we are now able to take online bookings for The Harmony for Hope Charity concert at the lower Hutt Town Hall on Friday 4th April.
Orchestra Wellington will be belting out a range of well known movie themes with their 41 piece Orchestra and vocalists to make this a truly memorable occasion. Why not get on line today and book your tickets. Great event for a great cause.
I would really appreciate it if youcan also assist in promoting the event by ''Liking” and ''Sharing'' the “Harmony for Hope” Facebook page. I would like to set a target for our club to sell 200 tickets (4 tickets per member)
The format of our meetings this year will continue as they were for 2024 i.e. with a Business meeting (Rotabiz) on the first Wednesday of the month and a Community focussed meeting on the third Wednesday. Remember if you see that we have a speaker that might appeal to your friends or business colleagues why not bring them along: they just might enjoy the vibe and decide to join the Club.
Lastly the Petone Rotary club have asked us for a few Fair Marshalls for their annual “Petone fair”on 15th Febuary (see notice below). Please let me know if you can help out for a few hours.
I look forward to catching up with you all next Wednesday for Breakfast,
Peter McCombs R.I.P. (2 May 1943 - 8 January 2025)
Peter's funeral took place at Old St Paul’s in Wellington on 15 January 2025. And as Cameron remarks in his President''s report, Allan Brown officially represented the Club, giving a tribute on its behalf.
From the online Tributes to Peter, also comes the following from Andy Soper:
Peter was a delightful man to know and work with. He was so kind, positive and sensitive. In Rotary, I found Peter to be a wonderful example of the best kind of leader. He encouraged and uplifted everyone around him, and he had an interesting knack of delegating and getting people to do things by making them believe that no matter what the task was, they could do it – and in fact they were the best person for the job.
New Zealand's first regular airmail service began. Piloted by Captain Euan Dickson, the first flight of the Canterbury Aviation Company’s new airmail service left Christchurch at 8am, carrying several hundred letters to Ashburton and Timaru into the teeth of a south-westerly gale (no change there then!)
Meanwhile, two of my homeland's "finest hours"...................
On this day in 1606, British provocateur Guy Fawkes, one of the Gundpowder Plot conspirators (third from the right below), who sought to blow up the Houses of Parliament and to assassinate King James I for his repression of Roman Catholics, was executed in London.
The UK formally left the European Union, more than three years after the country
Laurence Edwards is Wellington Water’s Chief Advisor for Drinking Water. He will be presenting on the region’s water supply and demand challenges, what this means for water restrictions in summer, and the future investment needs for the region to ensure a sustainable water supply.
Laurence is a Chartered Member of Engineering New Zealand with experience in a wide range of three waters infrastructure projects, including reservoirs, pumping stations, reticulation pipelines (pipe networks for water supply), and trenchless technology.
His assignments have also included work on private and local authority projects in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Special interests include hydraulic modelling, pumping station investigation and design, and transient analysis (water hammer).
He's a keen golfer, a big Liverpool FC fan, and has a lovely wife and two boys to keep him out of trouble! (so says Linkedin).
In 1922, U.S. Rotarians organised an attendance contest; the challenge was that the losing clubs would join in giving the winning club a prize.
The Rotary Club of New York City was declared the winner and to them was awarded as a prize a bell from a popular patrol boat, which was placed on wood that came from HMS "Victory," Admiral Nelson's vessel at the battle of Trafalgar.
Since then, the bell used in Rotary meetings started to represent, as on the ships, order, discipline and the time to guide us through the weekly hour and a half meetings. The bell informs us with its sound the beginning of the Rotary meeting, other club rituals and of course the closure of the regular club meeting.
A reminder of Club Meeting Duties: Introduction to Speaker
It’s a good idea to do a little research beforehand so you can set the wider scene for an interesting talk.
Get there early.
Meet and greet our speaker as they arrive and make sure to get their name and pronunciation right!
Before breakfast, introduce the speaker to our President and then to other members.
Make sure their presentation is plugged into the system and test it on the screen (help is always at hand for this).
Encourage the speaker to use the microphone so everyone can hear clearly.
Guide the speaker to get breakfast, sit with the speaker and make them comfortable.
When your moment comes stand to tell members our speaker’s name, where they are from and their topic.
Give the speaker a welcome and relate a little of their background and their qualifications.
Name their topic, say we are keen to hear what they have to tell us. Be brief, and avoid telling of your own experiences or what you know. If you wish, there’s some useful advice here.
Petone club are once again looking for help with marshalling on the streets during the fair, which next year will be held on Saturday, 15 February.
If you would like to help, please contact Andy Soper. It could be as little as one hour standing on a street corner.
The future of Rotary is going to depend on more cooperation between clubs, so we should help where we can. Petone is now quite a small club but they are active, and have made a very reasonable contribution to Lifting the Lid, both with cash and personnel.
Join us for this special NZ movie (based on a true story) which we will use as a fundraiser for Club projects: Petone Lighthouse TheatreWednesday 26 February from 5pm for a 5.45pm start - $25 pp. Bring your friends!
Mareta Percival. Struggling after the death of her daughter in the Christchurch earthquakes, Mareta reluctantly takes on a role as a substitute teacher at an elite private school and is surprised to find children in desperate need of guidance, inspiration, and love.
A preview of this film can be found at the link below:
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!
19 February 2025
Our second Breakfast meeting in 2025 will be with Stefan Preddy, NZ Police, as the main speaker. Stefan will be talking on The Challenge of delivering fit for purpose custodial facilities.
Finally, which Rotary Club is considered to be the most remote?
