Rotary Meeting Thursday 3rd February 2022
Meeting opened by Richard Johnstone at 6:05. Richard was stand in sergeant for Ted Mason
Richard updated us on ‘this day in history’ with all sorts of various events that happened.
Ian updated us and welcomed our guest Geoff Bentley. Ian also welcomed back Sarah as our guest and hopefully we will see more of her in time to come.
Ian announced Committee Meetings next Thursday night.
Ian handed over to
David Blewden to introduce our guest speaker.
- Tremendous asset to the Urban Miners team
- Has started groups with community volunteers
- Also calls himself a repair detector and educator
Geoff was brought up in the Waikato in the Eureka area not far from Cambridge. He moved to Wellington for a few years and got in to web development then moved overseas and was involved in the Stomp show.
Geoff returned to NZ after that and began a carpentry apprenticeship which he didn’t really like then back in to web development and then started a few initiatives locally in the Cambridge area.
In 2019 Geoff started a community workshop called Trash & Treasure Sundays which is a repair co-op and the mantra is to ‘recycle and re-use” and teach the younger generation how not to throw stuff away. He received local grants to fund this community group.
Geoff is a fully accredited professional development facilitator for the Ministry of Education and has done a lot of work with schools in Cambridge and the wider Waikato helping teach teachers to learn the fundamentals of the new Digital Technology curriculum.
Geoff gave us a few pointers about cellphone security and what to do to disable your device correctly before handing it in for recycling.
He advised us to:
- Sign out of all online accounts, Google, Apple, Samsung etc
- Set the phone to factory reset and this should clear all data on the phone
Ian thanked our guest speaker and gave him a small gift of our appreciation.
Bronwen Byers gave us a report of what the International Committee have been up to and their plans.
Bronwen talked about 2 options moving forward:
- Looking at finding a local group to work on a project with and work on an international focus project together
- Align with the Days for Girls team and collaborate on a film evening or social event to raise funds for an international project
Her committee meeting next week will look to brainstorm these 2 options above and look at which is the most viable option moving forward.
Doug Lang spoke to us about Rotary Foundation and the programme around donating regularly to the Foundation.
He talked about if the millions of Rotarians around the world donating annually approx. US$115 which enables Rotary to be the highest rated charity and 91% of the funds raised are put back in to the community.
Doug handed out some forms to members who may be interested in donating to the Foundation monthly.
Richard drew the raffle which was won by Richard Seabrook and Don Harris.
Notices
Doug Lang updated us about the Apprenticeship Scheme. We applied and was accepted for a District Grant and our club is to match the donation given to us by the District.
The funds are going towards starting a local apprenticeships scheme for funding tools and equipment for local apprentices.
Andrew Bateman is heading up the programme and John McCullogh a local builder is also part of the project team.
This could become an annual project.
John Bishop updated us about the 75th Celebration at Te Awa on the 17th Feb
So far 93 attendees forecast and we will hear more next week when John meets with Mandy at Te Awa to make sure the event is still going ahead due to possible Covid restrictions.
Andy Newman talked about the Tongariro Crossing walk coming up on the 26th/27th February.
Nigel Salter informed us the Heart Foundation collection has been cancelled due to Covid restrictions.
Ian closed the meeting at 7:38pm
Zoom Ready Face to Face Meetings
From the 27th January we started our face to face meetings at the Cambridge High School.
For any of our members or guests that wish to zoom in to our meetings we hope to have a computer in the our meetings running our standard Rotary Zoom link as below.
If you are planning to join us via zoom please let David Partis or Bill Robinson know so we prepare to accept your attendance via zoom.
From David Partis & Bill Robinson.
