A good turnout for our meeting this week, it does seem a long time since we had a full meeting, but of course many of us have been heavily involved with Bookarama and our last scheduled meeting was replaced with a Bookarama briefing.
Geoff Thompson, the Bookarama Committee convenor shared with us that this year’s Bookarama reached the 50k mark. This is a remarkable achievement and is a direct result of the many, many hours of hard work put in by the Bookarama Committee and the tremendous support from those members who also made a huge effort on behalf of the club, and indeed the community who will benefit from this. To all concerned my appreciation and thanks for a job well done.
Ian Fox introduced two visitors to our club last night, George Cheeran and Sindhu Punnoose. They are from Kerala in South India and have lived in New Zealand since 2013.Now living in Howick, both are actively involved in leadership roles in community groups and have been members of Western Springs Rotary. A pleasure to meet them, I hope they enjoyed their evening and perhaps we will see more of them.
Meryl Monk was also a visitor, always a pleasure to have Meryl with us.
This meeting was a very special one for us as we had the pleasure of hearing about the RYLA experience of Tara Nicholls and Martina Rheinback. Tara, Barry and Ann Nicholls granddaughter ‘s parents were able to join us as well.
Both Tara and Martina have achieved academic success at university and both had personal goals wanting to challenge themselves. Tara wanted to build her own personal confidence and improve her leadership skills, while Martina wanted to explore her own perceptions and challenge her comfort zone, to be happy with what and who she is. They talked us through the timetable and activities which were designed to challenge , build trust and confidence to meet the challenge of the off-site experience. Other activities explored business opportunities and how to build a skill base that would lead to success.
There was a great deal of speculation around the off-site experience but no one was really prepared when it came ! Anxiety, excitement and anticipation were some of the words used to describe their feelings as they headed to their destination, what the whole experience did do, was it force them to exhibit enormous personal and team effort and resilience .
Leadership from leaders and team members, and support from the Army personnel got them through this most challenging of challenges.
A case of covid did impact on the programme as some were in isolation, but it was an opportunity to test resilience and support.
Both Tara and Martina had a wonderful experience and it was made more meaningful for them both because they went with a very positive “can do” attitude and a very clear idea of what they wanted to gain from it all.They were extremely self-reflective about their own vulnerability and acknowledged both the physical and emotional challenges of such a programme, giving us a genuine insight into their personal challenges.
They are both now engaged in leadership and support roles in the Community including food packaging and RYPEN, and both have volunteered to help with the RYLA experience next year.
We wish Tara and Martina all the very best in their future endeavours.
Colin Monk stepped into the role of sergeant pretty much by default. Bill Charkow is still overseas and had organised Steve Lines who is also now overseas, so he organised Mike Abercrombie who ,with Pat is also overseas, so thank you Colin for stepping in and for being so creative with your fines at such short notice . I think we could adopt the “whatever “approach more often!! Seems a large percentage of the club is currently overseas, the Rarotongan economy must be booming.
A very good evening , thanks to everyone for stepping into various roles and making it happen, and special thanks to Tara and Martina for their presentation.
Kia Tupato,Kia noho haumaru Take care, stay safe.
Madeleine East MNZM
President.
