Rotary District 9930 Newsletter ~ October 2017 (Oct 02, 2017)

Our District Governor's Journey ~ Leadership Training and More

Greetings fellow Rotarians,

With almost half of the Club visits completed, I continue to be amazed by the enthusiasm and commitment to Rotary and Making a Difference.

ROTARY IN ROTOTUNA (Hamilton) – Thursday 12^th October

Fairfield Rotary is launching a marketing drive to establish a new Rotary Club in the northern Hamilton suburb of Rototuna with a public meeting on Thursday 12th October at Rototuna High School, 7:00 – 8:00 pm. If you know someone who may be interested or you think would be a great Rotarian, please contact:

Les Robertson, President Fairfield Rotary; Email les@fla.co.nz; Ph. 027 295 4224 with names, phone and email addresses.

Daniel Lee accompanied by his father Richard and mother Margo gave a fascinating address with numerous photos of his challenge to walk the Te Aroroa trail, a continuous 3000km walking track from Cape Reinga to Bluff to raise funds for the Lowe Corporation Rescue Helicopter.

His goal was $10,000, but the walk actually raised $22,000.

At the end of the walk, he raised a further $8,500 for the children’s ward at the Hastings hospital by having his dreadlocks cut-off by children in the ward.

It’s just on 6 months since the Rangitaiki River burst its banks and flooded Edgecumbe with devastating consequences.

With the passing of time news of this flood has long since disappeared from the press so this is an update.

While Edgecumbe received considerable assistance during the evacuation time and immediately thereafter, there still remains a lot of work to do to re-establish people back into their homes.

Just on 260 homes were evacuated and many of these are deemed unfit to be inhabitable ever again.

Many houses are also waiting for insurance company decisions and the release of funds so repair work can commence. As a separate exercise, some houses have been getting repaired and are now coming on stream for re-occupation – so far around 15 families are back in their repaired homes.

The road to eradicating polio has been a long and difficult one, with Rotary leading the fight since 1985.

Going from nearly 350,000 cases in 1988 to just 11 so far this year has required time, money, dedication, and innovation from thousands of people who are working to end the disease.

Here are five things you may not know about the fight to end polio:

1. Ice cream factories in Syria are helping by freezing the ice packs that health workers use to keep the polio vaccine cold during immunization campaigns.

A Smile from Seng for all of Rotary

Back in 2014 when Seng was just 18 months old, he pulled a rice-cooker of boiling water down on his head.

His injuries included deep burns to his face and right hand, and the risk of going blind.

A local surgeon who had trained alongside Interplast teams treated Seng’s burns.

Not long after, a visiting Interplast surgical team was able to work with the local surgeon to further treat the burns.

After researching Cambodia Denise Arnold knew she had to go there herself.

She wanted to walk amongst the locals and try to get a sense of what it was like to live there.

In November 2007, Denise left her family behind and hopped on a plane to spend three weeks in Cambodia.

She had never had an OE after university and this was her first trip to Asia.

She travelled to Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Battambang, Takeo, Kampot and Kep. Denise found there was much to love, and much to hate.

The poverty was everywhere.

Her senses were accosted by beggars, children on the streets, people hawking goods no one wanted, old people sitting on the dirty streets cluttered with dogs, cats, cows, donkeys, pigs and chickens.

Rotary Havelock North's Vanuatu team

The International Rotary Project – the Godden Memorial Hospital Project in Vanuatu was taken up by Rotary Havelock North and once again Kevin Longman took up the challenge to lead a team from our club in 2015 and then last month he returned with another group

including Dale Prebble and club members Rob and Charlie.

They went to help finish the work started in 2015.

Rotary Rotorua North listen to Model UN Attendee

Guest speaker Jason Lee spoke on his recent experience at the Model UN Youth New Zealand convention – a very articulate young man who left members feeling that our country is in good hands with young people like him.

NZ Model United Nations is the premier Model UN event on UN Youth’s calendar, offering four days of thrilling debate, engaging guest speakers and a whole host of other events guaranteed to prove educational, exciting and, most importantly, fun.

Hosted at Victoria University in the heart of Wellington, NZ Model United Nations offers secondary school students the chance to interact with 260 other like-minded individuals on an equal playing field and to experience a little bit of life as a diplomat

Kihikihi Rotary plant 18 Trees

On August 8^th, our Club Kihikihi Rotary had the pleasure of hosting our DG Leonie Tisch.

She gave a very good update on Rotary events and the projects initiated by Ian Riseley, including the Environment Category.

That night we had a special dinner with many guests to present a Paul Harris Fellowship Award to Peter & Carol Fraser from Growing Spectrum Kihikihi, who over 40 years have done wonderful voluntary work in Kihikihi Township gardens, parks & school as have the Frasers three sons.

Rotary Leadership Institute: Learning and Information

Rotarians are leaders and learning about Rotary helps you, your club and your community. RLI gives you Information to help you participate and enjoy Rotary more and make a difference.

WEEKEND session 14-15 Oct 2017

Taradale High School, Napier.

RLI is a multi-district leadership programme, well established worldwide, with the mission to strengthen Rotary clubs through quality leadership education. It provides the opportunity for all Rotarians to develop and refresh their skills as leaders while also broadening their understanding about Rotary.

District 9930 Rotarians have been strong supporters of PolioPlus for many years and we are confident that this support will continue until the job is finally done.

The final push was always going to be the hardest, and possibly the most expensive.

To finally put the nail in the coffin of polio we have to find, reach and vaccinate, the most remote children on the planet, over and over again.

While 3 doses of polio will protect our children those who are malnourished may require ten or more doses to achieve protection.

The New Zealand Government has confirmed it will contribute to Rotary New Zealand new funding for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) to help the global fight to end polio.

They will provide a further NZ $5 million to contribute to ending polio transmission in the last remaining countries of Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. New Zealand funding to GPEI will purchase and distribute polio vaccines; support polio surveillance and monitoring; fund immunisation campaigns and strengthen routine immunisation systems.

Through the work of GPEI and donors, including New Zealand, an estimated 16 million people are active who would have otherwise been paralysed by polio, and the world has saved more than US$27 billion in health costs.