Welcome to our first Newsletter of 2025, and Happy New Year to everyone. Although the Club's breakfast meetings are still a month away, there has been plenty happening of course over Christmas.
Contributions to our bulletin are welcome and if you have anything please send to Richard at nabbo_123@hotmail.com.
And if you have any comments on the layout, content and information provided, let us know, because the Newsletter is yours.
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
Look forward to seeing you there.
President's Report
Happy new year to all,
While the weather can only be described as ordinary over the festive season, I hope you are getting plenty of R & R to unwind and reset.
On a positive note, I can tell you that the Tree of Joy was a total success with over 2,500 presents collected. Massive thanks to everyone that contributed to this great result. A real team effort and I’m sure there will be plenty of stories of peoples' generosity. Big shout out to Katrina Harding who once again managed this event impeccably.
Our Club’s central focus in 2025, along with the other Hutt Valley clubs, is to fill all 700 seats at the Lower Hutt town Hall on Friday the 4th April for the “Harmony for Hope” concert to provide significant funds for the “Lifting the Lid” project. To my knowledge this is the first joint venture project between the 5 clubs in the Hutt Valley.
The Wellington Orchestra will be belting out a range of well known movie themes with their huge 41 piece Orchestra.This should be a truly memorable occasion. A reminder the ''Harmony for Hope'' website is now up and you can purchase tickets on-line now. https://harmonyforhope.org.nz (see below for further details of tickets available).
Each year Rotary Hutt City along with the Salvation Army facilitate the donation of presents collected over 10 days prior to Christmas. The Tree of Joy was again in Queensgate for ten days until 10pm on 23rd December.
Recent totals have been around 1500 presents, but this year saw the total reach 2500, amazing generosity.
All ready to go, the Tree of Joy on its first day in Queensgate.
Katrina Harding with Marcel Geor and his son Lucas.
Marcel and Lucas did a deal with The Warehouse who matched their $1500 spend on presents, for the Tree of Joy, so we ended up with $3000 worth of gifts to donate to our charity recipients: such generosity from both groups! Very humbling.
Just some of over 2500!! gifts that have been handed over for distribution.
Working together as a Rotary team. Richard Gibbens about to take over duty from Judy Braniff, whilst Rob Cranna and son Dom called in to pick up the presents for distribution. It's certainly a busy time of the year!
And the $100 Draw winners are........................
Just a reminder of the sterling work put in by Craig Deadman to sell all the $100 draw tickets before Christmas.
This raised $5000, with prizewinnings returned to ticket holders of $2950. The remaining $2050 helped significantly towards the Nourish hampers (see immediately below for amazing feedback).
For the record, our winners, drawn at the Breakfast meeting on 18 December, were as follows:
$100 Katrina Harding
$100 Cassie Barker
$250 Vidette Eaddy
$250 David Percy
$750 Sophie Mawley
$1500 Murray Brockelsby
President Cameron (with Box of course!) masterminding the draw.
We featured the wonderful thank you from Nourish for the 3,900 boxes supplied by Cameron in the last edition, and of course, the $50 draw net proceeds have gone towards the food circulated.
Just how important this initiative is can be found in the full appraisal of feedback from both schools and families, compiled by the Nourish Trust Board. A PDF of the relevant slides can be viewed using the following link on our website:
One mum cried seeing so much food. Another thought she could select the food from the box, that she wanted. When I said that the whole box was for her, and the second box, she burst into tears. She couldn't believe that she was given so much. She is incredibly grateful.
Thank you for this. Mum's work hours were cut and she cried when we brought the boxes to the car.
Another busy session with Ian Orsborn (pictured right) opening the meeting with his three minute talk about how he recently celebrated 125 years of his family (farm feed) business, Sharpes, that started out near Gear Street, Petone in 1899. Quite the achievement in these times!
President Cameron then supervised the $100 raffle draw, with funds helping to pay for the Nourish Charity boxes.
Next followed District Governor Jocelyn Hogg, District Governor Elect Carol Green and briefly Brent Gerrard, District Governor Nominee for 2026-27.
Jocelyn's main message was about the "Pilot" regional trial, which has been developing for a number of years. The proposed changes are designed to foster greater collaboration among Clubs, with each group of Clubs known as a Regional Community Group. For those unfamiliar with the background, this series of FAQs provides useful material:
Keith Vaughan (below) was our Christmas speaker and his theme was resolution in relationships vs dissolution - timely in this season for both personal and work connections.
Some of his main takeaways:-
God's relationship with Mankind was broken, but Christmas restored it;
It is impossible to solve a problem with the same thinking that created the problem in the first place;
People hear what they want to hear, not what is said;
By all means be ruthless with standards, but be gracious with People.
Sometimes, it is hard to find a really interesting thing that happens on our circulation day. (Although the United Nations met for the first time in 1946!)
But for someone born in London, with a keen interest in popular music, 10 January is very easy.
Rod Stewart is 80 today, born on 10 January 1945. My teenage years begain in 1970, so the arrival of Rod Stewart on the main stage in 1971 with Maggie May is part of my growing up. I have seen Rod perform live more times than anyone else, and he never disappoints with his showmanship.
It is a myth, however, that he played for my beloved Brentford, although he was on their books, as a player, very briefly!
But the day, for me, belongs more to David Bowie, who died on 10 January 2016 at the age of 69. Although Space Oddity appeared in 1969, it is the arrival of his alter ego Ziggy Stardust in 1972, coupled with the greatest ever performance on Top of the Pops with Starman, that again frames my teenage years.
I only saw Bowie once (in 1976), but the succession of style changes during his run of albums throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, is on a par with the Beatles catalogue. Talking of which......
This is ''Wee furry Otto'' inspecting our newly-laid Rotary Hutt City Brick at the Dowse walk in December.
A project run by Rotary Hutt Valley, many Lower Hutt clubs, businesses and families have named-bricks. It would be great to have bricks for past-Presidents too. Contact Katrina to find out how.
Our three-minute ‘Who Am I” is for you to briefly tell your fellow members about who you are and where you have come from.
• So, this is not primarily, about your career or what you have done.
• Rather, this is your opportunity to tell us all about your background, where and how you were brought up, and the timing and events that have shaped you and your character.
• The timing is purposefully limited to three minutes so we hear of the people and spaces that have led to your life and interests.
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:
A slightly different, but seasonal, slant from Linton, who chose to read three or four quotes from 4-6 year olds on what love means. The poignant quote was:
Love is what's in the room at Christmas, if you stop opening presents.
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!
5 February 2025
Our first Breakfast meeting in 2025 will be with Laurence Edwards, Wellington Water's Chief Adviser, as the main speaker.
Finally, I gave you a Christmas question: According to the Twelve Days of Christmas, how many gifts does my True Love give to me? Answer: 364 (cumulative after each day)!
