At our meeting on Monday 27th July, President Jonathan had the pleasure of presenting Shirley Calvert with a Paul Harris Fellowship.  This award was made in recognition of the considerable contribution that Shirley has made to our community, through a wide range of roles over the years, especially advocating for community-led projects like the Lake Dunstan Trail and town entrance signage.  She continues to do voluntary work on both the Dunstan bike trail and the Kawaru Gorge trail. 

As a member of the Cromwell Community Board and a three-term Councillor on the CODC Shirley identified and supported things such as lake and foreshore management, senior housing and maintaining and enhancing the natural environment through native plantings.   She has been actively involved in the Cromwell and Districts Community Trust (CDCT), Connect Cromwell and the Food Bank since these were established.  

Shirley has worked in the health sector for many years – not just through her own business but also doing Ambulance Patient transfers for Dunstan hospital from 2010 until late last year. She has also been a St John’s volunteer on the Northburn 100, a local endurance race, since it started more than 10 years ago. 

 Shirley plays a very active role in both the Mokihi Reforestation Trust (she is the current chair of MRT), overseeing plantings at Stuart’s Ferry and the Predator Elimination programme (training locals in the deployment andmanagement of traps).

The time and effort Shirley has given has made a significant difference to the lives of people in Cromwell.  Her long involvement reflects her deep commitment to Cromwell’s people, places, and future.  

A well-deserved award.

At our meeting on Monday 27th July, Shirley Calvert and Mary Hinsen gave the club an insight into the work they have been doing in our community, helping move Cromwell to a predator free environment.  Their work over more than two years has included dealing with the various agencies involved, seeking funding, sourcing the necessary hardware and establishing the organisation required to make the activity sustainable.  However, much of the emphasis has been on training and awareness initiatives.  It has been necessary to make locals aware that there is a predator issue to be addressed. A wide range of activities beyond setting and managing traps are available for people willing to help.

Work identifying the type and location of the various predators is helping optimise the type, location, and preferred bait for the traps in use.  Current statistics show an 84% success rate for the traps in use, with possum accounting for 50% of the predators eliminated with rats the second most common.  With growing support, single traps can now be combined to form a ‘trap line’ as the result of cooperation between neighbouring properties.

Mary and Shirley made it clear they would welcome additional volunteers to help with the programme.

We have received a note and photos from Kusitina, who took the ´May Bra collection´ over to Fijian girls and women, where there is such a shortage of bras available to them.The community donated over a 1000 bras which was amazing and the Rotary contribution was extremely generous.  Thank you to everyone who supported this projectHere is the email received from Kusitina:

The joy I get from seeing the faces of the ladies is so good..fills my heart with gratitude for you and the Rotary club Cromwell.  

A lot of ladies who are widows and their daughters from Nadi to Suva have received with humble heart, and so much gratitude for the support and love in these generous gifts

At our meeting on July 13th, we had the pleasure of hearing from one of our Club members, Craig Lunn. Craig who has been a member of our Club since 2013, started by talking about his journey to Cromwell from Invercargill where he grew up.  From a very young age Craig demonstrated his entrepreneurial skills, one of these was to trap and skin possums, which he got down to a fine art in record time. The proceeds from this bought him his first bike when he was just 14 (a love of bikes has stayed with him to this day). Although he hated school, the drive to succeed was always there – this led him to establish his own insurance brokerage company, which was extremely successful and the reins of which he has now handed over to his son.  His favourite pursuits are still cycling but now include golf, motorcross, water and snow skiing. 

In the thirteen years that Craig has been in our Club it would be fair to say that Craig’s endeavours have had a marked impact.  He was Club President in 2018 and has held many Directors roles over the years but it his passion and energy for getting things done that is his real hallmark. This has been recognised by the Club with several awards, most recently the Mary and Lindsay McIntyre Award for demonstrating the Rotary mantra of Service above Self.   At a District Level Craig was involved with the Rotary Youth Exchange programme for many years – hosting students from many countries in that time.  

Craig outlined many of the activities he had been involved in, probably the most well known was the Lot 47 House Build which raised nearly $1million for use in the local community.   However, the project most dear to his heart and to which he has given many hundreds of hours of his time, is the development and continued maintenance of the 45th Parallel Track. This track which does a circuit up and over ‘Sugar Loaf’ was first suggested by one of our now Honorary members, Donald Young, over twenty years ago. Donald even ‘accidentally’ sprayed a gully that would need clearing for the track to go up it.  For some years this was a rather stop/start project which struggled to make a lot of progress, not least because of the changing requirements to allow it to happen.   A seat and sign were eventually installed on Sugar Loaf in 2010. In 2012 Bill Roxburgh organised a group of PD workers to work on the steps. Those of us who had been in the Club right through this period well remember the times we spent supervising PD workers to build the steps, carting gravel and wood to make the steps (it is over 200 steps from the road to the top of sugarloaf!) and generally pitching in when help was requested. Craig took the project over in 2013, and under his leadership the project gained considerable momentum.  Another seat was installed part way up the steps – in memory of John Webb, a long-time member if the Club.  A car park and signage were finalised in 2018, in time for the official opening of the track, fittingly this was the year that Craig was Club President. Since then, Craig has done many improvements to the track, especially on the steps to ensure that they are safe and less likely to get eroded.  He says that these days, if he is working on the steps, people often stop and talk or offer to carry material up for him. He had some interesting stories to tell, not least about the young woman who ran up and down the steps 10 times one day, apparently training for a marathon!!

It was estimated when it first opened that 5000 people a year were using the track. That number has multiplied several times over since then. It is a much used and appreciated community resource.