It's been 8 months since my team and I presented our Strategic Plan and Objectives for the 2018-19 Rotary year. We spoke about how we aspired to execute our plans with the 4C’s - Clarity, Communication, Collaboration and Commitment.
In the spirit of the 4C's, our first meeting of 2019 was a sharing and Q&A session to help bring clarity and open communication around what we have done to improve Club effectiveness and some work around strategic fundraising opportunities.
Four of our members took centre stage and shared with us information about progress made and what's ahead.
Immediate Past President and Membership Director Gill Johnston and PR/Marketing Director Christine Fenby spoke about the successful migration towards a cashless system with the use of Eftpos and roll out of tokens for sargents session, a new tagline for refreshing our Club logo, and also the use of ClubRunner App for member information, event and meeting registration. Slowly but surely we are moving ahead and modernising.
Fundraising Director David Graham then spoke about “The Battle of the Suits” fundraiser - an Oxford style law debate/black tie dinner that is planned for this August at the Cordis Hotel. Two major law firms have already agreed to partner with us on this event and friend of Downtown Rotary QC Lyn Stevens will be the judge presiding over the debate. A celebrity MC is also part of the plan. It will be an evening to remember and one which we aim to have 300 guests in attendance (100 of whom we would love to have from Rotary). Stay tuned for more information.
Sargent James Billing introduced to the 36 members in attendance, a strategic fundraising Art Walk project that has tremendous potential to increase the visibility of Rotary and the Causes we support while raising substantial funds. This project spans 24 months (with preparation starting this March and the final display and auctioning of art sculptures in March 2021). Thus far the core organising team led by James, has received support from ATEED, Auckland Council, Child Cancer Foundation, and MBIE. Some discussions with the America's Cup team are also in progress. The timing of this event will coincide with the America’s Cup which presents a great opportunity to showcase Rotary during this world class event. As James put it in his pitch- “this could be the Ronald McDonald House phone appeal fundraising project for my generation of Rotarians”!
A copy of the presentations and a consolidated list of Q&A’s that were asked during the meeting, will be emailed to members this week.
If after reading the slides, you have any other questions pertaining to the projects, please email your questions to Club Secretary Jan Malcolm (janmalcolm@gmail.com).
Members will also receive a short survey with a few questions about the fundraising event and new tagline and will have 7 days to complete. The survey will be emailed from (lucyc04@yahoo.comviasurveymonkey). Please take a few minutes to share with us your views.
Once we have the survey results and further data from the core team, the Board will meet with last year's organisers for a deep-dive Q&A session before we make a go/no go decision. I will keep you all informed along the way.
Finally there are a number of service and fellowship activities planned over the next 5 months of the Rotary year which I hope you all will try to attend. These activities are a great way to connect with people both within our Club and in our community.
Our original Downtown Logo was created some 10 years ago to reflect our Club's uniqueness and personality within the Rotary world and in our community.
Christine Fenby has taken the initiative to help us refresh our logo with a new tagline to reflect our dynamic nature.
Share your views about the tagline in our upcoming survey. With enough votes, we will order some customised clothing with our new logo so that we can all proudly wear our logo at different Rotary and public events.
Volunteering at the City Mission - the Process Behind the Giving
(Helping hands: Lucy, Keiko, Andrew, Trish, Gill and Jan)
Have you ever wondered what happens to the clothing and items you donate to City Mission?
Four of our Downtown Rotarians found out first hand when they volunteered to help sort and fold clothing donation at the City Mission (CM) distribution centre in Grafton. Andrew and Trish of CM, told us that since the Marie Kondo craze (a TV decluttering expert who has started a trend around the world), the CM has been flooded with donations of clothing. So much so that they had to stop receiving donations for a few weeks as donations have started to pile up. Every week volunteers are needed to help sort clothing (there are only 2 full time staff on site- Jackie & Trish) which then gets directed to either the refuge, or to one of the 4 Op Shops in Auckland to help support families in need. Proceeds from the Op shop goes towards keeping the mission operational. Did you know that the CM spends apx. $30,000 a year on disposal fees as sometimes the donated items are in such bad or unusable condition, that they have to be thrown away. On the other side of the spectrum, sometimes there are really good and unique items that are donated which end up being collectibles. Drop into your local City Mission Op shop to take a look and help support the community.
On 22 January 2019, we had our first Rotary "meet-up" aboard the yacht "The Savoy".
It was a wonderful evening, cruising around the Auckland Harbour while enjoying drinks and homemade nibbles (gazpacho, cheesy olives, veggie & grazing platters, tortilla, smoked salmon pikelets, lamb parcels & fishcake sliders) provided by our awesome catering team (Joanne Wills, James Hook, Jan Malcolm, Gill Johnston, Karen Hally and me). What a great way to catch up with mates and to meet new ones as well!
Several guests were amongst the 50 of us including District Governor Ingrid Waugh and her husband John.
Auckland City Mission (ACM) is one of the 7 social causes our members voted to support. City Missioner Chris Farrely and Fundraising Executive Lyn Stevens came to speak at our Club earlier this year to share more about the new facility "HomeGround" due to be built by 2020. In the interim, the ACM has moved into a new temporary facility. To learn more about the project click on the website:
Five of our Club members (Jan, Byran, Gareth, Des, Kat) and Weilian (who joined from our facebook page), volunteered at the City Mission from 11am-3pm on 21st of January to help prepare lunch/dinner service for about 170 people.
The City Mission serve about 250-300 meals a day with only one onsite chef and with the rest of the help provided by volunteers.
Did you know that last fiscal year, ACM distributed 12,753 emergency food parcels to struggling families and individuals? They successfully housed 112 homeless clients; they provided 14,362 health consultations to vulnerable, high-needs patients and also admitted 375 people to residential drug &n alcohol detoxification.
The Auckland City Mission is in regular need of volunteers and group volunteers to help serve meals to the homeless. Kat & Gareth would like to run this event again if there is interest from the club members. So please get in touch with Kat if you are keen to volunteer on a regular basis either solo or part of the little Downtown Rotary group.
On 29th May, Past President Gill announced "Mal's Challenge" to our Club and his desire to help build up our Club Trust by an additional $100,000!
Read more to find out why and how you can help make this happen by 31 March, 2019.
At the Annual General Meeting this past week, members were presented with the various distributions made last year by our Club Trust to individuals and organisations in our community. These distributions and donations help change peoples lives. Fundraising is an important aspect of any service organisation as money is needed to do good work. We can either raise funds through events such as celebrity dinners/auctions, etc. or if we have enough capital to invest, we can use the interest earned to support our Causes.
Since the announcement of Mal's Challenge, we have received donations and pledges of $20,000. Mal has already committed $10,000 and is willing to bring it up to $50K if members are able to donate the remaining $30,000 by 31st March 2019.
All donations made to our Club Trust are tax deductible and members will receive a receipt from our Treasurer Grant Hally.
If you would like to make a donation, you may do so directly to:
ROTARY CLUB OF DOWNTOWN AUCKLAND INC. CHARITABLE TRUST
Account: 12-3252-0053102-00
Feel free to contact Lucy or Grant Hally if you have any questions on the above.
This is a great opportunity for us to double the size of our Trust and to leave a legacy for future programs to help those in need.
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