Waitakere City Rotary Club: The Fourth Decade

2000 to 2001

President: Kerry McMillan

Rotary Theme: Create Awareness... Take Action

Kerry was asked for one highlight of his year as president - and forwarded a list of the projects the Club undertook that year. Whilst projects can vary from year to year the list gives an idea of the range of projects the Club gets up to in one year.

Club Service:

Community:

• Funds provided for Bethells Beach Surf Life Saving Patrol surf boat.
• Commissioned new surf boat and helped Club with their recruitment drive as part of Water Safety Initiative and Rotary promotion at Westfield Shopping Mall, Henderson.
• Presentation of computers to Rutherford preschool and Salvation Army.
• Two tree planting sessions with Trees for Survival were held with participating schools at sites selected by ARC. Pomaria School was approached and are prepared to accept a growing unit.  A sponsor has been found – however more funding is required to construct a security fence around the unit before a start can be made.
• Finished Peace Garden project and Don Page Memorial. Presented to Mayor Bob Harvey by PP Bob Benzie who organised the event.  Maintenance was carried out by Jim Wakeling.
• Graeme Nicholson’s Mangere Marae project 
• Supported Yugoslav dance troupe 

Youth:

• Awarding of bursary scholarship to Rebecca O’Gorman. 
• Organised funding for Waitakere City Improving Schools programme by providing urgently needed car.  Funds obtained from CARE Foundation. 
• Received two visits from Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars. 
• Arranged funding via CARE Trust for St Johns initiative to train teachers and provide First Aid Kit for Ranui School – publicity received in local paper. 
• Assist Waitakere City Council initiative to promote literacy programme 
• Presented old DARE van to Youth In Search Group  
• Presented Waitakere College with funds for new cricket pitch 
• Held ROTARY STOP  
• Provided 50% funding for Genesis School of Science 
• Birdwood School – provided funds via various trusts for reading assistance programme, music programme and Police sanctioned Warrior Kids Programme.
• In conjunction with Henderson Club provided funding for Outward Bound participant.
• Tertiary Scholarships were awarded to three senior Waitakere College students.
• Tertiary Scholarship awarded
• Challenge 2001 supported
• Youth Exchange to Australia supported
• Arranged funding to send Snr. Sgt Rod Bell to Adelaide Youth Summit

Vocational:

• Improved members knowledge of Rotary
• Vocational - Trip to Vodafone
• RYLA participant supported
• Vocational – Youth Summit – organised for District by our Club

Sunshine Fund:

Fundraiser:

Interestingly enough International isn't included in the above list although Kerry certainly made up for this omission in future years!

2001 to 2002

President: Ken Dixon

Rotary Theme: Mankind Is Our Business

2002 to 2003

President: Darcy Haliday

Rotary Theme: Sow the Seeds of Love

2003 to 2004

President: John Ritchie

Rotary Theme: Lend a Hand

This was the year that John Ritchie, Kerry McMillan and Bob Benzie brought the AASBD Soapbox Derby to West Auckland.

The race turned out to be not only a real winner with the local children but also a very, very good fundraiser.

Half of the funds raised went to the new West Auckland Hospice and the remainder went into our various Rotary community projects - including Truancy Services being given a car.

Our major fundraiser was the 1st Annual Soapbox Derby in March 2004

2004 to 2005

President: Derek Gee

Rotary Theme: Celebrate Rotary

February 2005 was the Rotary Centenial Birthday. To honour this our Club started preparing for this in the 2003 to 2004 year with a large donation to the new West Auckland Hospice.

This year, 2004 to 2005, a second equally large donation was also given to the West Auckland Hospice www.wah.org.nz as our Centenial Year project.

In April 2005 Waitakere City Rotary ran the RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award) camp on behalf of District 9910

Our major fundraiser was the 2nd Annual Soapbox Derby in March 2005

2005 to 2006

President: Monique Mataga

Rotary Theme: Service Above Self

A highlight of the year was the Oktoberfest where Rotarians and guests partied hard dressed in a German theme. Profits from the night were used for our Rotary programs.

2005 saw the creation of our first website designed by Monique's daughter Buzzy. It was very creative and a great insight into the 2004 and 2005 years. 

Much of the content was reused when the website was redesigned for expansion reasons in 2010.

Our major fundraiser was the 3rd Annual Soapbox Derby in March 2006

2006 to 2007

President: Jim Annison

Rotary Theme: Lead the Way

A second car for the Improving School Attendance Program (Truancy Services) was sourced through one of our Rotarians - Bob Langlois, a car dealer.

Three more cars followed in the next few years and the photo at left shows all five with the Truancy team.

Jim tells me that in amongst the regular Rotary projects this was a great fellowship year with several trips to the Westwind Theatre in Avondale.

Our major fundraiser was the 4th Annual Soapbox Derby in March 2007

2007 to 2008

President: Domenic Wood

Rotary Theme: Rotary Shares

Individual Rotary Clubs are part of a really, really big organization and joint Club meetings and Conferences are a great way to see what others are doing and to forge the bonds between us.

Visiting other organizations and meeting with others in our community also help define our own role and see where the needs are greatest.

• Waitakere hosted a Paul Harris dinner for the Area 6 (West Auckland Clubs) at the Showgrounds. Four Paul Harris awards were awarded - one of them to Past World Rotary President Bill Boyd
• We visited at least 4 clubs during the year - Henderson, New Lynn, Northcote and Takapuna when the Korean RI president visited.

• Domenic attended the District Conference in NZ.
• Jack and Lucy attended the RI conference in the States.

• We hosted a business dinner and Graham Douglas was the key note speaker

• We were also involved in the "Dragons Den" supplying seed funding for the Youth Enterprise Scheme and Domenic attended the Waitakere Enterprise dinner where the winners of YES were announced

We were also, naturally, involved in many and varied projects in our own area and were awarded a Presidential Citation

Our major fundraiser was the 5th Annual Soapbox Derby in March 2008

2008 to 2009

President: Terry Hodges

Rotary Theme: Make Dreams Real

In 2007 our International Committee approached Port Vila Rotary for a "hands on" project in Vanuatu. They suggested finshing an incomplete Aid Station at a remote village on Tongoa Island.

Over the next three years small teams of Rotarians went across to the island armed with materials and worked with the islanders to finish it. June 2009 saw its completion.

An update to this was that 2 weeks prior to the completion trip a massive earthquake damaged the village water supply and school so two more trips followed to fix these.

Our major fundraiser was the 6th Annual Soapbox Derby in March 2009

2009 to 2010

President: Terry Hodges /
Craiger Hargesheimer

Rotary Theme: The Future Of Rotary Is In Your Hands

In February 2010 there was a motorway walk with a difference - the motorway was still in the construction stage so the community got to see the work that goes into these, the massive machines that are used... and why they take so long to build.

West Harbour Rotary called on Henderson Rotary and ourselves to give them a hand to run it... so we did.

During the year we had several joint club meetings with others out here in the west and also helped out at the Henderson Rotary Santa Parade.

Our major fundraiser was the 7th Annual Soapbox Derby in March 2010