A piano, a Rotaract Club, a new Interact Club, and what next for innovative Port Nicholson Rotary?

Several work colleagues used to mention to me the colourful piano being played by people on the Wellington waterfront on those beautiful sunny days that we seem to be enjoying increasingly in Wellington.  It was great to be able to say that this was Rotary bringing vitality to our community, through the Rotary Club of Port Nicholson.  This Club is full of innovative ideas and happy to share them.

A few years ago, the Rotary Club of Port Nicholson was one of the Wellington Clubs that helped establish Wellington Rotaract and one of their members, Jo-Ann, was present when AG John Mohi, Denise and I visited last week.  We were also delighted to hear that Port Nicholson Rotary's efforts to create an Interact Club in Wellington were at the stage where I was able to sign off on the new Interact Club's certification documents for processing by Rotary International.  We look forward to the charter celebration in a few weeks time.

The Interact Club consists of 26 charter members from Wellington Girls College and Wellington College.  A member from each College will co-Chair the Interact Clubs, which is a great example of collaboration across two colleges.  We look forward to hearing more about their continuing community and social activities.

DG Martin signs off on the certification documents for a new
Interact Club involving Wellington College (co-Chair Jack in photo)
and Wellington Girls' College.  

Port Nicholson Rotary has many local and international community service projects on the go, including working with other Rotary Clubs to fit out an ambulance for Wellington Free Ambulance, raising significant funds through a quiz and auction evening to support charitable causes, and supporting young people through Rotary's youth programmes such as peer support, dictionaries in schools and RYLA.  Port Nicholson Rotary is to be congratulated for running RYLA for the past three years and they are now supporting Hutt City Rotary as that Club takes over the RYLA programme.  See the next District Newsletter at www.rotary9940.org for more information about RYLA enrolments.

President Mark Cassidy with a certificate recognising the Club
as a Centurion Club, giving more than NZ$100 per member to
The Rotary Foundation.  

Port Nicholson Rotarians are also actively involved in major international projects, such as providing potable water to communities in the Philippines with other Rotary Clubs and rebuilding a water supply destroyed in the Nepal earthquake.  And these are only a few of the activities this Club is involved in.

Rotary Clubs like Port Nicholson get involved in a diverse range of activities for a number of reasons, which include their willingness to contribute to and learn from their involvement in District activities.  They can rely on the experience and advice of Past District Governor Howard Tong, AG Rick Hughes, Christopher Robertson on taxation, governance, charitable trusts and The Rotary Foundation, Brent Gerrard as Treasurer for South Pacific Presidents Elect Training and working with Mark Pickering, Mike Selvadurai  and others on the Philippines water project, Bev Wells who as Chair of the District International Service Committee and RNZWCS Ltd has gathered together a great team from other clubs, Jane Paterson as the NZ Chair for the Peer Support Trust, Joy Durrant as Literacy Coordinator and Bill Day as ROMAC coordinator providing needy overseas people with surgical interventions here in New Zealand.     

Now - see what I have done?  I have mentioned some projects and some people, but I will have missed out many of both, but as Rotarians who live by the Motto of "Service above Self", I am sure you will forgive me any omissions.  The main purpose of this blog is to highlight different aspects of Rotarian service that I hope will be informative and inspirational for other Rotarians.  Thanks you President Mark Cassidy and Port Nicholson Rotarians for making John, Denise and I feel so welcome.  

AG John Mohi, DG Martin, President Mark Cassidy and Brent Gerrard