The setting up of the Rotary Book Sale is always a massive effort by a lot of people. The books have to be taken to a unit in the Industrial area for sorting, pricing and displaying and then on to the Cromwell Bowling Club, who hire us their facility for the Rotary Book Sale event. This means a lot of work for a few people. Always on hand is R & R Hi-ab, whose staff are unfailingly cheerful and clever with manoeuvring their machinery when they bring the container full of books to the Bowling Club.
So, on Thursday evening, members of the Cromwell Rotary Club invited Ray & Stacey Moran along with one of their staff, Scott, to enjoy a drink with them, and have a sneak preview of the books which were ready for the sale on Friday.
We knew that Ray wouldn’t like a lot of fuss. President Pam Broadhead and Nick Wood, the incoming Rotary District Governor for 2021-22 had great pleasure in presenting Ray with the highest award from Rotary, a Paul Harris Fellowship to thank him for his generosity and work in the Community. Congratulations to Ray and his team.
The Rotary Book Exchange container at Freeway, which was kindly donated by Ray Casey of R & R Hi-ab, is again open.
At her first meeting of the Rotary year Pam Broadhead had the pleasure and honour of inducting Jan and Lyall Hopcroft as new Members of our club. Jan and Lyall have recently moved to Cromwell from their Southland farm in Balfour and have already been active in several of our club projects. Grant Lunn our new Director of Membership assisted with the inductions.
We are extremely proud to announce that our Cromwell Club has been awarded two significant district awards in a recent Changeover ceremony. The first is the Lionel and Lynette Wilson award for best club collaboration project. We have won this award jointly with the Wanaka and Alexandra clubs for the Rarotonga Lilliput library project, which involved using recycled glass fronted fridges for Lilliput Library style self help book exchanges for the main island of Rarotonga, along with dictionaries and library books for Apii Nikoa School. This school was built approx. 2 years ago by Chinese Government Funding for Y 1-8. They have a library approximatley 8m x 9m but it has no shelving or books. The school woodwork class will build shelving as a project.
The second award we have recently won is the Charles H Taylor award for the best bulletin in the district as voted by the judges. This is a much appreciated acknowledgement of the work that outgoing president Neroli and current President Pam have put into our Bulletin over the last 12 months.
Pictures is District 9980 District Governor Elect 2020-21 (& Cromwell Rotary member) Nick Wood presenting the award to Pam & Neroli
We also received 2nd place club website so a great day for the Cromwell club.
Jackie Dann receiving her PHF from Neroli McRae, President 2019-20 & Pam Broadhead, President 2020-21
Jo Lunn receiving her PHF from Neroli McRae, President 2019-20 & Pam Broadhead, President 2020-21
Pam Broadhead receiving the Mary & Lindsay McIntyre Award from Jennie Nicol Cromwell Rotary Charitable Trust Chairperson
Recently we gained the well-known local actor, Sam Neill as an honorary member.
Rotary Club of Rowville-Lysterfield in Melbourne, has conducted a series of twice yearly Business Breakfasts for the past ten years or so, attracting high profile speakers and supporting many worthy causes, both Rotary and non-Rotary. Naturally, with the current pandemic, face to face events are not possible, so they turned to the digital medium to stage their event.
Normally they present their Guest Speaker with a wrapped gift or bottle of fine wine, but in Sam's case that was impractical given that he is currently housed in Sydney and as a NZ vigneron a little like giving ice to Eskimos! So the suggestion was made to make him an Honorary Rotarian. We were lucky enough to be asked to be part of this as a club near to his home.
The event went very well indeed and they ended up with the following outcomes.
1. Nearly 150 attendees.
2. 18 Rotary Districts involved.
3. 4 countries registered bookings, including a Rotarian from the Caribbean and a participant from New York.
4. 4 Australian states were covered.
5. 2 Australian Territories registered.
6. Both the North and South Islands of NZ were involved
7. Just over $4000 was raised for the Actors Benevolent Fund in NZ and Australia.
8. Major radio coverage was achieved on 3AW (major Melbourne radio station) and the ABC across regional Victoria and NSW.
Sam was extremely generous with his time and although they had anticipated a 45 minute interview, he chatted for an hour and ten minutes! And he played his ukulele and sang.
He was very chuffed to be made an Honorary Rotarian at 'Crommy' as he exclaimed and was greatly looking forward to meeting us all and receiving a club Rotary T shirt in the very near future. He was also pleasantly taken by our 'tongue in cheek' suggestion at being the Patron of our club's next fundraiser if it was the 'Cromwell Ukulele and Pinot Noir Festival!'
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CROMWELL, 9310
New Zealand