The Noticeboard 11 December 2018 (Dec 10, 2018)

11 December 2018

This week we celebrated our last Rotary breakfast meeting of 2018 at the Holy Trinity Cathedral with a splendid turnout of 70 people with a few unexpected guests from afar. Former Downtown Rotarians Carole Buckley and Antonio Caliari-Pearce and two Danish visitors (Jacob & his partner) from the Haderslev Hertug Hans Rotary Club in Denmark joined us for a breakfast box from EatMyLunch before we moved to the Bishop Selwyn Chapel for introductory comments (and jokes) from Peter Wilson before The Very Reverend Anne Mills gave us a Christmas Message.

What struck me most about Reverend Anne's message was that she asked us to take a moment and pause from the frenetic holiday season and reflect on what the meaning of Christmas really is. To help us along, Rev. Anne asked us to look at a tea light which she gave to us upon entering into the Chapel and asked us several questions to ponder about the year gone by.

Questions such as - what was the most challenging part of the year? what was the most fun/successful? who were the people who played a significant role in your lives? if you had to use one word to describe your year, what would it be?... These questions allow us to be mindful and Rev. Anne encouraged us to share the thoughts & feelings that come from reflection about love, hope and opportunity with our family over the holidays.

We ended our splendid morning being serenaded to by our Downtown Rotary Choir (led by Andy Picot) accompanied by organist Dr. Philip Smith.

Later that evening, 25 Club members (out of 75 attendees) went to listen to Dr. Helen Christensen (our Visiting Scholar from New South Wales) speak about suicide interventions and her current research in Australia. An expert in the field of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Dr. Christensen argued that suicide is preventable and that it requires a combination of different interventions and community members to be effective.

She took us through some highlights of the research (Lifespan Approach to Suicide Prevention) her team at the Black Dog Institute are currently doing with the $15million grant they received from the Australian government to help tackle this growing issue. She also talked about the partnership with Dr. Sally Merry and her team and rolling out SPARX as one of the interventions in her overall program in Australia. For more information or a copy of the presentation, please contact our CAMH Champion, Graham Hendry.

This first half of the Rotary year was filled with a variety of events and I hope all of you have had a chance to enjoy some of them. I would like to say a special thank you to the members of our Board and our Champions who have led the various initiatives and programs and whose passion and efforts continue to keep our Club vibrant and fun for all.

I wish you and your families a wonderful Christmas holiday. Enjoy the 5 week summer break in good health and joy as we enter into 2019!!

All the best!

Lucy

Enjoy the Summer Break - Rotary in 2019

Yacht Meet-up, First Meeting @ Northern Club, Registration & Other Useful Info for 2019

The Noticeboard will be on a break for the next 5 weeks. However, the latest activities planned for 2019 will still be posted on the website, so make sure to check it out to stay up to date.

To ease our way in the New Year, our first Rotary meet-up will be on luxury yacht The Savoy on 22 January 2019. Come join us for a casual get together with wine & nibbles, good conversations and fun. There are limited seats left so please go onto Clubrunner to register attendance to avoid disappointment.

We will begin our regular breakfast meeting at the Northern Club from 5th February, 2019. Stay tune for more information about the Speakers for the day.

We are going to start trialing Club Meeting Registration via club runner for our 5th February meeting. As with all other Rotary events, you will receive an email from Lucy (sent out by Dan) which will provide you with the meeting details. There will be a link for you to "accept/decline" attendance through your email. Please look out for an email notice mid January. Alternatively, you can go online to our Club website to register yourself and guests.

Mal's Challenge- Getting to $100K

Posted on Dec 06, 2018

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.