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The President's Pen

Hi fellow champions.
 
Welcome to the new Rotary Year. Hopefully you all enjoyed our changeover evening on Friday, which in true St John’s style was filled with laughter, banter, great fellowship and a few fumbles. For those that were not able to attend, the theme for the year will be “Supporting our Champions”.
 
Champions are the people in our club or community who are passionate about our community and need the framework to support their initiatives. We are hoping this approach will allow champions to quickly gain the support they need to execute their projects successfully.
 
We have a busy year ahead with loads of projects, fund raisers and fellowship activities in the pipeline – more on that in future weeks.
 
I would like to thank the previous President and Board for successfully navigating a challenging year and look forward to working with my team to springboard off their successes.
Take care and see you all on Thursday.
 
Warm Regards
Hugh
 
President: Rotary Club of St Johns
Phone: 021 0813 7313
Stories
Meeting in Review - Change-over, Jun 26th 2020
The Change-over is complete and big congratulations to Robyn and Hugh for organising a fun and memorable evening last Friday.
 
A total of 57 were in attendance; 33 Members and 24 Guests including one Horse, better known as Sir Tristram, (ST).  More about ST later in the story.
 
As one of her last duties of her Presidential reign, President Robyn welcomed all to this special dinner.  Robyn then shared her thoughts on how the year had gone and noted that it was one of highlights with a few hiccups along the way.  Although Covid19 tried very hard to derail the year, Zoom came to the rescue, and Robyn's ability to move between physical and virtual meeting formats, highlighted her leadership skills.
 
She shared with us a photographic record of the many highlights, events, activities, projects and meetings that were achieved during the year and she paid tribute to her Board, Executive Support team and all members who ensured "small acts made a big impact".
 
Robyn also acknowledged that without the enormous support that she received from First Man Tony, her daughters and their partners, she would not have got through the year.  As she thanked her team, two of the night's memorable soundbites were; 
 
 
  • "Thank you Alex for completing your duties, your accounting skills are quite unbelievable", and
  • When thanking Hugh for his input to the Board as President Elect, she also "thanked him for actually turning up tonight"!
Although dinner was beckoning, Robyn had one more formal announcement and that was the presentation of a Paul Harris Sapphire Award to Graham Fabian.  Graham's continued support of our club and our activities has been huge and includes; allowing the foyer of his store to be a collection point for the Foodbank, catering at no cost for offsite meetings, provision of Golf Tournament goody bags, donation of Quiz Night food and wine, significant cash donations to Foodbank and to our club, and the list goes on.
 
Surprised, but delighted to be accepting the award, Graham quite simply said that he wanted to give back to the community because he can, and that he has found that the RCSJ is the ideal platform to do this.  Congratulations Graham, so well deserved. 
 
 
 
To celebrate his award, Graham then started the annual chair throwing competition!
 
 
 
Following dinner, President Robyn's last official duty was to complete the Change-over by presenting incoming President Hugh with his "Presidential Pin" and the Chain of Office", also fondly known as the clubs necklace!  Hugh then shared his thoughts on what he would like to see our club achieve in the year ahead, and he looks forward to working with all club members to achieve his goal of being "Champions in the Community"  He then introduced his new Board and the Executive Support Team.  This team are introduced in a separate story below.
 
Hugh finished his first official comments to the club by extending a big thank you to last year's Board and support team and to Robyn and her family.  To cap off the formalities, Hugh presented "Past President Robyn" with a caricature as a memento of her very successful year as President. 
 
As mentioned above, we had one horse turn up for Change-over.  It was Sir Tristram. ST was an Irish bred Thoroughbred racehorse who stood at stud in Cambridge New Zealand, where he sired an extraordinary 45 Group One winners, including three Melbourne Cup winners. ST was looked after throughout the evening by his very skilled attendant, Helen, who did a wonderful job controlling her Champion ST, who was quite frisky all evening.  It was no surprise that ST and Helen won the Best Dressed "Champion Award", the theme of the evening.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Throughout the evening Sophie Garrett entertained us with the beautiful sound of the Harp.  Sophie is Tony and Robyn's niece.  She lives in Orakei and is a University of Auckland student.
 
To see more photos of the evening please click on "Read More" below;
 
Read more...
2019-2020 Year in Pictures
To see a copy of the "Year in Review", in pictures, click on story headline 
Meet Your New  Board & Executive Support Team
- 2020 / 2021
Your new Board  and the appointed Directors are listed below.  We wish the Board well for the year ahead as they stand ready to lead our club over the Rotary Year 2020 / 2021. 
 
Expect to hear a lot more from Hugh and his Directors with our plans for the year, over the coming weeks!
 
President - Hugh Scott-Russell
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
IPP & Club Service Director - Rambunctious Robyn Ingram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Presidents Elect - The Twins, Penny McGarry and Lesley Harris
 
Treasure / Secretary - Awesome Alex Gatt
 
Foundation Director - Gorgeous Gary Key
 
Membership Director - The Donald, Donald Bowie
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Youth Director - Marvellous Muriel Roake
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Science & Environment Director - Sir Peter Buchanan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Community Directors - The Twins Lesley Harris & Penny McGarry
Supporting the Club and the Board is the Executive Support team of;
 
PR and Web - Colin Robinson;   Speakers Programme - Brian Fergus;   
Sergeants - Michelle, Murray and Aubrey;   Bulletin Editor - Peter Walsh
 
 
Club Activities & Other Important Dates to Diary
THURSDAY JULY 2nd - Breakfast Meeting Remuera Golf Club 7.00am:
This will be President Hugh's first meeting.  Be sure to come along to support Hugh get his year underway as he shares his vision for the year.   An excellent opportunity for business and fellowship.
 
THURSDAY JULY 9th - Breakfast Meeting, Remuera Golf Club 7.00am:
Our Guest Speaker will be Chris Herlihy.  Chris has been invited to share his school's experience of preparing for, and teaching through, the lockdown; and the impact on his school community now that we are out 'the other side'.  Chris is a valued member of RCSJ.
 
 
THURSDAY JULY 16th - Breakfast Meeting Remuera Golf Club:
Today's Guest Speaker is Sergeant Rhys Smith - New Zealand Police.  Sergeant Rhys will talk about Glen Innes community challenges and how RCSJ could potentially offer support.  He will also give us some insight into what it was like being in the Police during the Covid19 lock-down.
 
Motutapu Island - Working Bee
Motutapu Is. trip, 28 June 2020 through the eyes of Peter Buchanan:
 
What better activity on a (mostly) fine Sunday than traveling overseas to Rangitoto, and on to Motutapu Is. – continuing Rotary’s 25+ year record of helping with restoration on the island. 
 
Nine of us joined Bridget Winstone, (Motutapu Restoration Trust’s volunteer coordinator for 18 years, and John’s second cousin!) at the ferry terminal.  On our arrival at Rangitoto we squeezed into a ‘troop carrier’ for the drive to the plant nursery on Motutapu.
 
There, we were set to work by Bridget on various tasks around the nursery – relocating plants; removal of large irrigation mats for later installation of overhead irrigation (that our club had earlier contributed funds for); weeding and sweeping; potting out seedlings into planter bags and valeting vehicles ahead of WOF inspections in Auckland. 
 
All of this activity was accompanied by calls of tui and the swoop of kereru in flight.  The heaviest shower was conveniently scheduled for our lunch break in the glasshouse, and Bridget made us all (Cheri, Michelle, Muriel, Prabha, Robyn, Avi & Kyle, John L, Peter B) feel most welcome.  We will look for further opportunities to assist on Motutapu later this year.
 
Quiz Night 2020
District 9920 Changeover Date 2020
DG Gary Langford has requested that all members are advised of the date for District Changeover - should members wish to attend. 
 
Changeover will be held on Saturday 25th July 2020 at the Remuera Golf Club, 5.30pm until 7.30pm.
 
If you are interested in attending, please diary now and further details will be advised early next month.
 

 
RYE Sponsored Student Lachlan Reporting from Chile
Due to the escalation of Covid-19 in South America the decision has been made to extract Lachlan from Chile as soon as feasible.  He is currently registered for the return-leg of a Chilean government-organised charter flight for Chilean's from Melbourne. We all wish Lachlan safe travels for an incident free return to our side of the world! Here is his latest email report to the RYE D9920 Committee:
 
With a flight booking this last weekend, it looks like this will be my last monthly report.  I'll use this opportunity to summarise my rather unconventional exchange.
 
Please click on "Read More", for Lachlan's full report.
Read more...
Tuneful Blast from the Past?
During a recent tidy-up an Honorary member discovered this gem - our Club's official (?) song!  Hum along and enjoy?
 
Time for a Smile!
Just Observing:
 
How not to pose in front of your camera in a Zoom Meeting!
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Have a wonderful week with many *smiles*.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Next Meeting:
 
Thursday July 2nd
 
Breakfast Meeting
 
7.00 am for 7.15 am
 
Venue: Remuera Golf Club
 
 
Bulletin Contents: 
  • The President's Pen
  • Meeting in Review - Change-over June 26th
  • Meet Your New Board
  • Activities & Important Dates
  • Motutapu Working Bee
  • Quiz Night Invitation
  • District Change-over
  • RYE - Update
  • Time for a Smile
Speakers
Jul 09, 2020 7:00 AM
Impact of Covid-19 on Glen Taylor School
Jul 16, 2020 7:00 AM
Youth Aid - Glen Innes Police
Jul 23, 2020 7:00 AM
TBA
Jul 30, 2020 7:00 AM
Aug 06, 2020
Quiz Night at Glen Taylor School
View entire list
Meeting Responsibilities
Thursday 2 July
 
Set-Up
Ingram, Robyn
 
Greeter
Richardson-Jones, Aubrey
 
Attendance
Gatt, Alex
 
Thanks & Close
Harris, Lesley
 
Set-Down
Figueiredo, Avinash
 
Thursday 9 July
 
Set-Up
Key, Gary
 
Attendance
Fergus, Brian
 
Greeter
Robinson, Beryl
 
Speaker Host
Ingram, Robyn
 
Thanks & Close
Robinson, Colin
 
Stand-By
Ingram, Robyn
 
Set-Down
Hartstone, David
 
Thursday 16 July
 
Set-Up
Cain, Miles
 
Attendance
Forman, Michelle
 
Greeter
Boyd, Lynette
 
Speaker Host
Roake, Muriel
 
Thanks & Close
Bell, Patrick
 
Set-Down
Cornaga, John
 
Stand-By
Peacock, Shaun
 

Club Contacts

President
Hugh Scott-Russell 021 0813 7313 
Secretary, Treasurer & Apologies: 
Alex Gatt 021 571 722
President Elect
Penny McGarry 021 702 310 &
Lesley Harris 027 4935 498
Sergeant:  Michelle Forman 021 0277 9456
Club Services: 
Robyn Ingram 021 022 0200 171 
Bulletin Editor
Pete Walsh 021 747 858
Membership
Donald Bowie 027 4752 473
Website:  www.rotarystjohns.club
Our Meetings
 
We meet Thursday for breakfast at
7:00 am for 7:15 am start,
except for the first Thursday of the month, when we meet in the evening at 6:00 pm for dinner.
 
Remuera Golf Club
120 Abbotts Way, Remuera, Auckland, 1072
New Zealand 
 
All Rotarian's are welcome 
including family members.
 
Others wanting to visit are most welcome to email contact:
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Small Acts - Big Impact!