To celebrate 100 years of Rotary in Australia and New Zealand, we’ve teamed up with UNICEF to give life-saving vaccines to 100,000 children across the Pacific.
Kia ora everyone,
Welcome to the start of a new Rotary year. I have big shoes to fill and acknowledge the hard work of Alan & last
years directors.
Great discussions were held on Tuesday 1 July and I appreciate all your feedback and comments. The decision
for our club not to have a strategic plan was clear & well-articulated. My focus for the year going forward is
providing a ‘hand up and not a handout’ with a focus on education to make a difference in our communities.
Literacy Project
Thank you for your support regarding the Literacy Project for Five-Year-olds starting school in the Upper Clutha
Region. The proposal agreed by the members is that the Rotary Club of Wānaka will provide all five-year-old
children starting school with a literacy pack. This project was initiated by the East Invercargill Rotary Club over
16 years ago & has been provided to over 18,000 children in their region. Cost to the club will be about $5,500
per year with packs costing $37 and estimate about 150 five-year-olds starting school.
Next phase is to establish a project team & consult with all five of our local primary schools. Please contact me
directly if you would like to be involved in this project.
General Information
On Saturday 5 July while everyone was busy at the Book Sale, Pat & I travelled over to Timaru to attend the
district 9999 change over lunch. An inspirational day, recognising amazing achievements in our District.
For only the second time in New Zealand a Royce Abbey Award was made to Liz Courtney from Papanui,
Christchurch. Several PHF Sapphire awards were made with Richard Smith, from Invercargill receiving one for
his service to the Southern Charity Hospital, Invercargill Dream Build & emergency housing project. Melissa
Vining who thought she was there to support Richard also received a Sapphire PHF. Paul Checketts (Finance) &
Rhys Jenkins (Youth) both from the Rotary Club of Alexandra received PHF awards as well. Valda Cordes who
has been the District Administrator for the last three years received a ruby PHF. Congratulations to them all.
Keith McIntosh, Queenstown Rotary club is now our District Governor & he is keen to connect and serve all the
presidents & clubs in the Region. We look forward to hosting Keith at our club on Tuesday 16 September.
Thank you, Pat, for coming with me.
Rest well everyone after an extremely busy book sale, amazing results & congratulations to everyone involved.
Travel safe Alan & have a wonderful holiday in Europe. Keep smiling & warm everyone & looking forward to
seeing you all at the Albie on Tuesday 15 July to hear from Matt Laming.
On Tuesday 22 July, we will be hosting an evening of fellowship at our house, 191 Aubrey Road from 1730
hours. Rotarians & partners all welcome & please bring a small plate of nibbles & liquid refreshments.
Bye for now, Marie
Well it's done - Marie is now looking after the presidential chains, and all that goes with that. My very best wishes to her, her team of Directors and the Club for the year ahead.
There was a great turnout on Friday night for our changeover, and for those that were not there, I reflected on the year just finished - achievements and work-still-to-be-done. But more particularly support provided to our community:
The PCR machine for the Woman’s Health Bus
The cardiac monitoring equipment for Dunstan Hospital
Training of paramedics for the Rescue Helicopter Trust
10 Community Groups ranging from Grow Wanaka and the Foodbank to the Petanque group
Numerous individuals pursuing their own development, e.g. Outward Bounds, Spirit of Adventure, international skiing competitions and Kapa Haka.
Local Mental Health initiatives
The RYDA youth driver training programme for approximately 180 MAC Students
and, the MAC & Kahu Youth educational scholarships
On the international front, we bought 3x ERK’s, 1x Shelter Box & donated $1000 to the Vanuatu Appeal which followed a major earthquake there earlier in the year. We also donated the equivalent of $115/member, to be shared between Polio+ and The Rotary Foundation.
While service is at the heart of what we do, I believe in this club this comes on the platform of a rich and resilient social life for our members and their partners. Starting with our 40th Anniversary Celebrations and ending with Guess Who's Coming for Dinner, we've had a busy year. So, I took great delight in presenting Peter Borrie with a Paul Harris Fellowship on Friday - this recognising Peter's many productive years in Rotary, but more recently for his efforts leading the Social and Activities Committee, the group that are at the centre of why the club is in such good heart. Congratulations Peter.
I also note that Marie presented Doug Lovell with his second Paul Harris Fellowship. Again recognising Doug's past work and ongoing role in the most critical part of the club's life - earning the money which enables us to support our community. Congratulations Doug.
Time to sign off. Some will know that I left for Dubrovnik over the weekend. I'll be somewhere between Singapore and Frankfurt by the time this is published. In Dubrovnik, my wife's 3 sisters, their husbands and I, will meet up with my wife and daughter, who have just completed ~800km of the Camino Trail. A few days later, we start a trip through Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia and across Greece to Athens. More places follow, but that's for another day.
Best wishes for the rest of winter. I'll see you in September.
Alan
Club Duties
Duty roster notes.
1. All active members (except honorary members and directors/president) are eligible to be rostered for duties.
2. Rostered members are responsible for doing the duty or arranding a substitute.
3. Please advise Jenny Dickie of substitutes on 021 342 227.
4. Duties are for the rostered week only.
5. Duties are notified in the fortnightly bulletin.
CLUB DUTIES ROSTER
8th July
15th July
22nd July
29th July
Attendance
Committee Meetings
Di Cuzens
Anne Lindsay
M.J. Moffat
Meet, Greet and Photography
Committee Meetings
Ferg Collie
Derek Howarth
Don Irvine
Introduce Speaker
Committee Meetings
Dave Evans
Vanessa Hills
Richard Howarth
Thank Speaker
Committee Meetings
Bernadette Frost
Ken Johnston
Tony Johnston
3 Minute Speaker
Committee Meetings
TBA
TBA
TBA
Raffle
Committee Meetings
Ken Goldfinch
Peter Harridge
Deans Hudson
Parting Thought
Committee Meetings
Roger Hamilton
John McLean
Noelene Pullar
Audio Visual Support
Committee Meetings
Julian Warren
Julian Warren
Julian Warren
From Sally Angus
Club Almoner. Note from Sally : I'm going to be in the Northern Hemisphere throughout the winter (late May until early September). While I'm away Rob Wilton has kindly agreed to take over as Almoner. Please do not hesitate to contact him at any time to keep him in the loop about any club members who might be in need of a little extra support. Many thanks. Rob is on 022 159 2096
New Member: Welcome to Dave McKenzie
Dave is well known to most of us so welcome back Dave. You are an asset to Wanaka Rotary.
Coming up - Club Night Activities
July 15th: Matt Laming : Quartz Development Group and Dropping Inn
Matt is the Managing Director of the Quartz Development Group and the Managing Director of Dropping Inn.
The Quartz Development Group are currently completing the Orchard Park development area and are also developing Sentinel Park, 209 Aspiring, The Hawea Hotel and Residences and Falcon Rise , Hawea. The Dropping Inn business now comprises Hello Ranger, Treehouse and The Hawea Hotel. Dropping Inn recently divested their interests in Urban Grind and B.Social.
Matt will no doubt take you through his career in Fonterra and the trials and tribulations in being a developer in the Upper Clutha region and relationships with the QLDC.
It is also worth mentioning that Matt recently donated the mature trees in the Orchard Road development to Rotary for firewood and is an active sponsor of the Wanaka Golf Club and other Upper Clutha activities.
Tuesday 22 July 2025: drinks & nibbles at President Marie's residence - 191 Aubrey Road, everyone welcome, please bring a plate of nibbles & drinks.
Previous Club Night Activities
Changeover Night
A great night of fellowship and enjoyed by all that attended.
For Outgoing President Alan's address click the link below.
which takes you to our Rotary website and read about the below and much more.
A Night to Celebrate
Charity Support – $50,000 Raised!
2025 Wānaka A&P Winter Crop Competition Full Winners List
Photos, Sponsors and Feedback
Kind regards,
Deans Hudson
Rotary Club of Wānaka
From Sally Angus
Hello from Sweden. Had to send you my greetings from the land of the midnight sun, where last night I had the absolute pleasure of dining out with Filip Lind, former Cromwell Rotary exchange student who stayed with John and me in Lowburn in 2011. Now a consultant engineer he's gone out of his way to show me a great time during the 4 days I've stayed with him and fiancée Frida. This photo was taken about 10.30pm last night and the birds were twittering this morning in bright sun at 4am. It pays to be a morning person !!
And the latest from the all conquering Wanaka Rotary Club bowls team
Rotary has been providing a team for the winter Indoor Bowling for some time now, and I got the impression that we were usually seen as the “Easy-Beats”. How times change!!
On Thursday night, the 3rd July, we had our team of intrepid bowlers arrive at the Indoor Bowling building on Tenby Street to face the foe! Malcolm Baker, John Milburn, and myself arrived with little or no expectation of doing anything of note, other than be polite to the opposition.
The usual format was gone through – hand over $10 each for the privilege of being there, find some Club bowls, wait for the word “Go”, shake hands with the members of the enemy opposition team, and then toss a coin for right to start.
Formalities over, it’s down to business, and, wonder of wonders, we won the first four ends, to be leading 9-0!! We took our collective foot off the throttle at that point and let them win the next four ends, but we still managed to win the game 9-6!!
Cup of tea – and biscuit - over, we are back for round two of the night, against a team which included an ex-Wanaka Rotarian. A much more even game this time, with ends evenly split, and the score after seven ends tied at 5-5, so all to play for!!
Well Mr. Milburn sent down an absolute purler, kissing the kitty and resting on it too! The middle chap just fluffed around, but when it came time for Malcolm, as skip, to show his stuff – did he ever!!
With his last bowl of the night, he moved the opposition aside and we ended up with a final score of 8-5 in our favour!
Prize-giving followed, and we were one of only two teams to have two wins on the night, and when the final tally was calculated, the Rotary Club of Wanaka won the night!!! In our usual modest way, we did not rubbish the opposition on the way to pick up our prizes, but hid our grins of delight, and even went so far as to say congratulations to each other. One for the books perhaps!!??
Attached is the photo of the victorious team.
From: Jazz Allison <jazz.allison15@gmail.com> Sent: 5 July 2025 9:08:24 pm NZST
To: Geoffrey Tomkins <gtomkins@actrix.gen.nz>, wanaka.rotary.secretary@gmail.com
Subject: Huge Thankyou
Dear Geoffrey and the Rotary club
I am just emailing to say Thank you for the $600 funding that you contributed to my Spirit of
New Zealand voyage.
I left on my voyage on Saturday 14th June. I was really nervous but so excited as this was something I had really wanted to do, and it was awesome to be missing the last two weeks of the school term to do something that was such a cool opportunity! It felt so good going onto the boat not knowing anyone and having our phones taken off us for the whole time, and coming off the boat with the coolest experience and some lifelong friends.
We were meeting a whole group of new people and had no contact with anyone except for the people on the boat which made it much easier to build those strong relationships.
When we went to our sleeping room we were allocated a ‘shelf’. I was in the middle shelf with one girl sleeping above me and one below me. There were 20 of us altogether in the room. It felt claustrophobic at the start, but once we got to know each other it was actually pretty comfortable.
Over the 11 days that we were on board we spent a night at Waiheke and a night on the Coromandel where we all started to get to know each other really well. Our next 3 nights were on Great Barrier Island. It was awesome there. We saw a shark, went snorkeling, cliff jumping and explored the islands.
We also spent time doing volunteer work which included laying a concrete path at The Conservation Centre and planting trees, for future generations! I really enjoyed the days we spent at Great Barrier and think that our volunteer work was appreciated by the people there.
My most memorable moments from my trip would be rowing from the shore to the boat in the dark with the very strong bioluminescence below us and the stars above us, seeing dolphins and whales in their natural habitat, learning about working as a team to sail a ship and of course the new friends that I made. Some of the people that I met on The Spirit will definitely remain friends forever.
We were all from different backgrounds, but we got to know so much about each other in such a short time. It was a good experience to have technology removed, but I have been thankful to have it returned so that I can keep the meaningful connections with my new friends from all over New Zealand.
The Spirit of New Zealand is an experience I will always remember as a part of my education. I am so grateful to have been able to participate in this experience and I would like to once again, thank Rotary for helping me to get there.
I might have a bit of extra work to do over these holidays since I finished the term early, but I wouldn’t change anything as the memories that I made were so amazing.
Here are some highlights / photos that were taken while I was on my voyage. (was so hard to pick only a few)
Kind regards - Jazz Allison
Greetings from D9815, Melbourne and Gippsland Areas. My local club is Maroondah, about 30km NE of Melbourne. Valda, I am an aviation nut, having attended the Royal International Tatoo (RIAT) in the UK, and a regular attendee to Avalon International Airshow (near Geelong) and Warbirds Downunder at Temora (NSW). I have always coveted attending Warbirds over Wanaka and have started looking forward to my options for 2026 and attending WOW over the Easter Weekend. I notice from the club website that the club assists in the running of the event, although there is no indication of exactly what you do. If i was to indicate that I would be available to assist over the weekend, would that be something your club would entertain? As I did when I went to RIAT in 2016, i was hosted by Rotarians in the near area and wonder if amongst your members there would be a Rotarian willing to host me for 3-4 day? I will have my own means of transport over the stay period. If home hosting isn't available, do you have connections in the accomodation industry where you might suggest i look for somewhere to stay? I look forward to your earliest favourable response. Kind regards PP Andrew Brownlie roo48@aapt.net.au +61 (0)478637661
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