Week 9 – Staying Close to Home This Past Week

View outside the Lowry Bay Yacht Club

On Monday we visited the Rotary Club of Western Hutt which meet in the Lowry Bay Yacht Club.  What a stunning evening – Wellington at its best as seen in the attached photos.  We were pleased to be able to present a PHF Sapphire pin to Roy Hunt for his outstanding services to rotary.  With low numbers the club is considering its future.  The club is full of spirit and Christine and I had a fun filled night.  We wish the club well with its deliberations on its future.

Club President Malcolm Bell, Christine and Graeme, AG Carol Green

Mayor of Lower Hutt Ray Wallace, Pat Prescott, DG Graeme,
Graeme Ross, President Bob Rowell

Hutt City Club is a  vibrant active lunch club and we visited them on Tuesday where we presented PHFs to Graham Ross QSM (a community PHF) and Pat Prescott, a club member.  It was great to be able to present Past President Simon Manning with a certificate recognizing the club as a Centurion Club in his year as president.  This club has a number of great projects including the Shape Shifter sculpture exhibition and the recent Fire Sculpture festival - see post below.   This club has taken on a number of new members recently with more in the wings.  It is the home club of our Assistant Governor, Carol Green for the Hutt 2 cluster.  We would like to thank Carol for all her help with our recent club visits in the area.

We also had the opportunity to have a meeting with Jean Phipps, the chair of the District Membership Committee and PDG Bob Smith to discuss how we might help support and strengthen clubs and in the process increase membership. As we have visited clubs we have been asking them what their greatest challenges are.  The majority of clubs have identified membership and the aging of clubs as their greatest challenge.  In line with one of RI President Tanaka’s themes, supporting and strengthening clubs, we will be specifically focusing on this.  We will keep you updated as we progress this.

We wish you all well for the coming week.

Graeme and Christine