Before Christine and I headed away to New
Plymouth for our club visits we had the opportunity to spend several hours with
the District GST/VTT team preparing for their exchange to District 5370 in
Central Canada (see article below).
They were putting the finishing touches to their presentations before
heading out to Canada on the 26 August.
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| World Community Service Committee |
On our way to New Plymouth we called in on
the World Community Service committee, chaired by Dot McKinnon, meeting in Feilding. The committee is active in
promoting International projects in District and one of their tasks is to
document International Projects currently being undertaken across District.
Our first visit in New Plymouth was to the New
Plymouth club where we presented a community PHF to a local CIB officer who had
been very active in the community.
It always inspires us to see the work and caring that is going on in the
community and illustrated by this award.
One of the interesting fundraising projects of this club is their running
of monthly community based entertaining talks.
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| Trees for Survival Project |
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| Presentation of the Taupiripiri Speakers Cane. DG Graeme with Rev. Albie Martin |
The following day we had the opportunity to visit Moturoa School and their Trees For Survival project. This was a very impressive project and shows the value to the school and the wider community. They are working closely with DOC propagating rare native plants for transplanting out into the community. We were impressed at the knowledge shown by our 4 young hosts aged 9 and 10 who knew all of the botanical names of the plants they were showing us. In the evening we attended New Plymouth West club and were privileged to be presented with the Taupiripiri Speakers Cane. This is a tradition of this club to present the Speakers Cane to the DG of the day for the term of their office.
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| New Plymouth West with President Michael Archer and Ngaire |
On Wednesday we saw an intriguing project with Rotary involvement, a replica lighthouse on the coast which housed a display on Ernest Rutherford’s connection with the area. This project has been 10 years in the making and is due to be opened to the public later in the year. The evening saw us at Fitzroy Club presenting PHFs to two club members and another well deserved community PHF.
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| Sir Ernest Rutherford Display. DG Graeme with George Beatson and AG Robin Aitken |
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| Lighthouse Project |
Before heading back to Wellington we visited New Plymouth North club and heard about several of their projects including the ‘Run-a-Muck race through mud. This has only been held once but proved very successful and looks to become an annual event.
Our thanks to AG Robin Aitken and Julie for
their help and support during the week.
Next week we visit 4 clubs close to home in the Hutt Valley and
Wellington. We will also be
attending the GSE/VTT Team farewell in Palmerston North.
