Supporting the environment and education is so much fun!



 

 

St Johns Rotary has had a long association with Glendowie Primary School and were instrumental in the sponsorship and setting up of the plant growing unit at the school in association with Trees for Survival.  Each year club members support this environmental learning project by joining the students at their annual planting day and on 24 May a half dozen members went with the students to plant a variety of native flax and shrubs onto a farm in Clevedon. 

Environmental projects were recently identified as a priority by members for future project identification and planning - this will include opportunities to assist the projects of others whether within Rotary or elsewhere but where there is an association with a club member.


Low Down

Trees for Survival is a programme started by the Rotary Club of Pakuranga Inc that has moved on to be an independent organisation that continues to have strong Rotary support throughout New Zealand.  For more information  click here  

Having Fun, Doing Good Packing Emergency Response Kits

That’s the slogan for St John’s Rotary and this week, on a wild and wet Wednesday night an enthusiastic group of members, friends and family could be found in an empty Penrose warehouse packing Emergency Response Kits (ERK’S).

Prepositioned stocks of ERK’s are held in readiness by Rotary Clubs in Samoa & Fiji for immediate distribution when needed with backup and replenishment stocks of ERK’s held in Auckland & Christchurch ready to be air lifted by the NZ Government through NZ AID to any disaster areas in the South Pacific Islands. The kits contain a vast array of household items and clothing including cooking utensils, clothing, blankets and tarpaulins, hygiene items, first aid supplies and a few basic tools and cost approximately $700 each. There’s a degree of precision involved in packing over 120 items into the containers but with 21 able volunteers it was a case of many hands made light work and there are now, courtesy of St Johns Rotary, 75 more kits ready to be airlifted to Samoa.

 

If you’d like to know more about what Rotary is doing in our community, would like to contribute in some way email stjohnsrotary@gmail.com  or visit www.stjohns.rotarysouthpacific.org

Teddy Bear Hospital Sponsorship

The Sunshine Fund has donated a $300 sponsorship to the Teddy Bear Hospital.  The Sunshine Fund is made up of small coin donations by members at club meetings usually as the result of an active 5 minute fun session by the Club Sergeant, John.

Medical students put together a child-friendly hospital in which we welcome kindergarten-aged children and their teddy bears (or any stuffed toy for that matter) to come for a visit. During the visit, the teddy bears are then “fixed up” by their owners with the help of Teddy Doctors (medical students). The goal of the event is to decrease childrens’ anxiety and fears around visiting the doctor and hospitals through interactive play all the while giving medical students the opportunity to interact with children and practice clinical skills in a low stress environment. The children get full access to experiment and play with all of the doctor’s equipment in order to help establish a familiarity.

For more:  http://teddybearhospital.co.nz/ 

Rotarians building sandcastles ... you bet

The inaugural St Heliers Sandcastle Competition was held last Saturday 23 March 2013 and the Rotary Club of St Johns was there!

A very credible result!

This competition replaced the St Heliers Festival of previous years and instead of community stands up the main drag, the stands this year were along the waterfront and St Johns Rotary was again there to promote both the club and Rotary and ShelterBox.  As in previous years, the ShelterBox display dragged in the families and provided the perfect opportunity to talk to them about Rotary and Beryl now has a list of names to spin her charm on and try and get some along to the club!

Clearly the Rotarians needed a helping hand from more
experienced sandcastle builders

The members, including some of our newer members looked after the stand throughout the day but for some the lure of actually taking part in the sandcastle building was far too great ... maybe it brought back memories? ... under the guise of promoting Rotary of course.

New member Anne and Andy at the stand
(not showing are the tear drops and the pull up banners)

This was another great day in the sun at the seaside and all enjoyed themselves.


Low Down

The display had the usual:

Bringing a new school and a new community together

 WOW, what a fantastic day. The theme was "Getting to Know You" - pulling the school, the community, business's and Rotary together.

The Stonefields Fair was held on Saturday 27 October; the weather was kind to us, turning into a very hot day. The fair was held as a community project in conjunction with Stonefields School and took 9 months from conception to fruition. The day was a great success with the fair being opened by the electorate MP, Simon O’Connor. There was a huge turnout of people from far and wide. A 5 year child turned the corner of the building and was heard to say ”OH MY GOODNESS, what have they done to my school?” There was all the sweet and food stalls from Stonefields School and St Johns Rotary organising and manning all the other events.

The Bouncy castle, under water aquarium and Old MacDonald’s farm, where children could pat farm animals and ride ponies, proved to be a great success, which left both children and St John Rotary members manning the events, all exhausted. Well done Peter and your team.

Alex G did a sterling solo job on the HuckFinn fishing contest, which was a big attraction for the younger kids. We even got Simon O’Connor and Cameron Brewer to do a fish off.

Underpinning the whole event was the entertainment. What a wonderful job this team did, headed by Slavica and Simon and what great talent we have out there. This was splendidly managed by our fantastic master of ceremony – Jo Holley.

Sprinkled between the entertainment programme was the fundraising Rotary spinning wheel, ably run by Chris and his team. This fundraising was only possible by the support from local businesses such as New World, Mitre10, Bunnings, Smart Marine, Wet & Forget.

Animates were another great success with many vouchers and products being given away and Margaret nearly coming home with a gorgeous Jack Russell called Max.

Tom and his team did a great job in pulling the sports teams into the community. These groups put up some generous silent auction prizes.

Denise and her team were very successful in pulling together local interests such as  Auckland University Tamaki Campus, Remuera Golf Club and Dove House.

Beryl and Colin manned the Rotary table with the assistance of an emergency tent and had videos to demonstrate what Rotary does. There were plenty of interested parties for Beryl to follow up with.

DG Ron Seeto also joined us at the event, which was great to see, and much appreciated given his large workload.

In the financial Engine Room we had Alex Mc and his team doing a sterling job ably supported by ASB at Lunn Avenue . We had Adian, the branch manager and two of his staff being present all day to support the event and offering efpos facility. The bank sorted all floats prior to the event and provided aprons for members to use as money pouches on the day. Adian also went with Alex to the bank to weigh and count the takings, making the process easier for everyone.

The school did a fantastic job in supplying and managing all food stalls, with a diverse range of food on sale.

While a big thank you goes to all the club for pulling together to make this day such a success I would like to particularly thank two people - Graham Fabian for supporting the event from the outset with $5,000 New World sponsorship which allowed the club to continue with the idea, knowing that costs were covered and Donald Bowie for all his organisation skills, in coordinating us all and keeping us on task.

A huge thank you goes to our other sponsors, who did not have a direct involvement on the day but who made financial contributions, these include Todd Property, Fletcher Residential, Barfoot & Thompson and White Cross Healthcare.

This event achieved all that we set out to do:

1 Connect with the Stonefields School and its community                     
2 Raise our Rotary profile in our community                                                     
3 Connect with local businesses                                                                           
4 Raise funds for our Youth Rotary projects

We should all be proud of our efforts, thanks to everyone for all your hard work.  

For a full set of pictures go to http://imagesbybrucehancock.com/stonefields-community-fair-27-october-2012/

This is another example of St Johns Rotary being active in the community.  Enquiries for membership or just to support the club can be made by phoning Beryl 021 652 802

A huge thanks go to the community-minded sponsors of this Fair:

Gold Sponsor: StoneFields New World, Lunn Ave
Silver (funding): Todd Properties, Fletcher Homes, Barfoot & Thompson, WhiteCross
Bronze (goods): Mitre 10, Bunnings, Smart Marine; Animates
Many Sports Clubs who gave vouchers for the silent auction

                                                                                                  

St Johns Bush gets a tidy up

On Saturday 22 September a bushel of club members and partners spent an energetic and enjoyable few hours helping to tidy up the St Johns Bush in Meadowbank as a part of the club's environmental programme.  Within the bush there is a circular trail that passes a stream and a lagoon through quite thick native bush - the tranquility is such that you could almost be in the middle of the Waitakere Ranges rather than residential Auckland so this is a "must" for those needing a few minutes exercise and escape from the bustle of the day.

 

Building futures - literally

A couple of times every year a group of members, and usualy their partners, get together and join in on a Habitat for Humanity build.  These are extremely fun, hands-on projects and therefore very popular with our members as the pictures below show:

Just another example of why Rotary is so great!

Supporting Group Study Exchange to Alaska - a maternal medicine focussed group

Group Study Exchange is a vocationally based exchange of young professionals between two countries.  This year the exchange is between  District 9920, New Zealand and District 5010 Alaska USA and Yukon Canada .  The team is made up of maternal and child health professionals. A member of our club, Paul, is on the organising committee.


The team from Alaska talked to the club last week and a summary of their talk is in the bulletin click here


To see what the outbound team is doing in Alaska go to: http://hauoranz.wordpress.com/ 


The RC St Johns has sponsored one of the outbound team members - Laura Barkwill (Clinical Psychologist)  who will visit the club after her return.


For more information about GSE and the team click here

GSE is the only Rotary programme that Rotarians or their families cannot apply for - in all other cases involvement by Rotary families is encouraged.  The team is lead by a Rotarian.

To the top of Rangi with a whole lot of fun kids

Who says Rotarians cannot have a heap of fun

Thanks to David Stone's persistence and organisation 37 children in years 7& 8 at Glen Taylor (plus 5 Rotarians and 2 teachers) had a very enjoyable trip to Rangitoto Island. There was great excitement as we boarded the bus and the noise levels were very high as we headed along the waterfront to the ferry building through rush hour traffic, maybe the bus lanes are a great idea after all!!! The reality of these children's lives was bought to us when one of the children said ‘I now know where Kelly Tarltons is’ as we drove past it. Onto the ferry and trying to control the kids excitement as they explored the boat. Once on Rangitoto we split into our 7 groups and headed up towards the summit, or 5 of the 7 groups did. Simon’s group along with teacher Megan’s group decided it would be easier to stay on the flat as they headed off towards Islington Bay.

Uphill ... uphill ... uphill

After an hour walk and a bit of complaining the 5 remaining groups reached the summit of Rangitoto, including a couple of educational detours lead by Gary Key. It was time for lunch and it was good to see the oranges from Graham’s New World being eaten as otherwise there were a lot of chip packets. If going uphill was a bit slow the kids were pretty keen to race down until one boy fell and grazed his knee. A bit of blood and the fact that Alex McKenzie was at the front soon slowed them down though. After exploring the swimming and rock pools at the bottom it was back onto the ferry and being blasted by the wind on the top deck as we headed back to Auckland.

Hitching a ... ferry ... ride

It was a much quieter bus trip back to school with a few of the kids falling asleep. Despite all the physical exercise all the kids had a great day with some very nice farewells as they headed back into school. They had been studying volcanoes so hopefully there was some educational value in the trip as well. Thank you to David for organising this event and to Alex Gatt, Gary Key, Simon Jones (aka Shackleton), Andy McCarrison and Alex McKenzie accompanying the children.

Trivia in abundance but what a night!

Saturday night saw 170+ people making up 20 teams gathered at the St Heliers School Hall for a night promoted as "FUN, LAUGHTER & TRIVIA".  It was all of that.  Teams comprised some Rotary club, corporate, political and mixed teams. 

Quiz Master extraordinaire, Steele, ensured that the thoughful, interesting and sometime outright obscure questions developed by our resident knowledge-bank Frank were delivered and answered professionally and with the Four Way Test in mind ... possibly.  This of course was helped by the wine (yes we had a licence for the wine, beer .. and soft drink) and the atmosphere created by the teams of whom most dressed up to represent their values (or lack of) and intent to have a FUN night out.

Being reponsible hosts the table decorations included plentiful snacks to nibble on, followed by delicious pizzas and finshed off with desserts on a stick.

However, in addition to the fun, the other purpose of the evening was to raised funds for the club's community projects in the year ahead and give members of the community the opportunity to support this.  To this end, in addition to the admission investment of a whole $25 per person there were a series of raffles, the opportunity to purchase quiz answers (a certain political group did this well - thank you and please come back next year) plus an auction with some amazing items donated including an impressive painting done by Brenda (what talent).

The total for the evening was over $8,000.  Thank you everyone for taking part - come back next year and bring even more friends.

To see a 3 minute video from the evening CLICK HERE