Monday 29 April 2013

Support RNZWCS by 'Like" their Facebook pages

Those who use facebook may or may not know that once 30 people click the like button, the Facebook user has access to more options including knowing how many people view the page without hitting the like button.

We believe this additional information would be useful for our future planning and use of the site. If you are a facebook user would be grateful if you might favour us with a tick.

The links are below.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rotary-New-Zealand-World-Community-Service-Rnzwcs-Limited/219030164844881?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/EmergencyResponseKits?fref=ts

Conference Key Note Speakers from Africa will Amaze and Inform

One aspect of Rotary Involvement is the opportunity to attend the annual Rotary conference and hear some amazing interesting and / or motivational speakers that help open the opportunities that are available for all.

Here is an example:


Districts 9970 and 9930 are holding their conferences in Methven and Napier in May at which the combined attendance will be in the vicinity of 900.

Key Note Speakers at both have travelled from East Africa and will be giving an insight on one of the most successful projects that Rotary New Zealand supported by the New Zealand Government have undertaken.

The Kondiki Milk Processing Plant, a co-operative dairy of 210 mostly women members, has become a major source of livelihoods and income for local families.  The facility is now the most up-to-date and modern automatic milk processing plant in Tanzania, as a result of the direct investment of the New Zealand Government and Rotary New Zealand. The Plant initially had the capacity to process 800 litres of milk per day, and has increased its processing capacity to more than 5,000 litres per day. 

As a result of the earlier activity the plant is increasing its daily processing and is on a trajectory to process 2,000 litres daily from existing co-operative members by September 2013 (as a result of gradually increasing numbers of milk producing cows from the cow bank system) in the medium term.  However, 2,000 litres is the maximum projected supply from members.  The supply of raw milk is limited by the number of cows and quality of breed, inadequate animal husbandry and green feed management, and because marketing strategies are still developing.

PP Dr.Sadikiel Kimaro Ph.D. in economics

Born the youngest of 6 children in 1941 on a coffee farm in Mwika, on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. He came to the U.S. on Afro-American scholarship programme in 1960. He has a BA from Gustavus Adolfus College (magna cum laude) in St. Paul, MN; an MA from Syracuse University, and earned a Ph.D. from SUNY, Binghamton where he studied under a Rockerfeller scholarship.

In 1971, he began his life-long career with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which took him to almost all countries on the African continent and to the Caribbean. In 1990, he was a visiting scholar with the Brookings’ Institute in Washington DC while he was on sabbatical leave from the IMF. There, his area of focus was on conflict resolution.
Upon retiring as advisor from the IMF in 1999 he served briefly as Economic advisor to the then President of Tanzania until 2005. Since then he has devoted full time to community development as a Rotarian and as chairman of the Mwika Development Trust Fund (MWIDEFU).

Young Kimaro Ph.D. candidate, economics

Born the youngest of 6 children in 1946 in Seoul, Korea. Her brief stint as a child actress on TV came to a stop when she left for U.K. with her parents where she attended school from grades 6 to 10. She has a BA in political science from Yonsei University (magna cum laude), Korea. A Fullbright scholarship took her to the U.S. where she studied African politics at SUNY, Binghamton.

She joined the World Bank in 1972, attended the University of Maryand graduate school with World Bank sponsorship and became a Ph.D. candidate in economics in 1987. Her career with the World Bank, spanned from strategizing development assistance, education projects, and moderating quality review panels for World Bank operations.

Upon retiring from the World Bank in 2001, for 7 years she wrote a weekly column “Development with Commonsense” in the Daily News, a national newspaper in Tanzania. Now she devotes full time to community development for Mwika Development Trust Fund (MWIDEFU) and as a Rotarian.


Website:  www.rnzwcs.org

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Being Golf Mad Brings Life to a Great Idea

Rotary Club of Porirua Sundown Club’s golf-mad president, Gordon Beattie had an idea. The club had been visited by the local Wellington Free Ambulance representative Andrew Dunning, who had talked about their community initiative, Operation HeartBeat, designed to make Wellington the leading Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) -survival city in the southern hemisphere.

Life-saving Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) are being placed all around the city, and Gordon’s idea was to run a Golf Competition to raise money to fund three AEDs – one at each of the golf courses in Porirua – Titahi, Pauatahanui and Judgeford. Teams of four were invited to enter the competition, and sponsors were found for each of the 18 holes (6 at each club).  This sort of competition had never been held before – with all three courses involved, so there was a lot of interest from local golfers.

A project manager, David Stewart,  from the Rotary Porirua Sundown club was appointed to co-ordinate all of the activities, from catering, sponsors’ signage and communications to rostering of volunteers.  The local newspaper, Kapi Mana News, came to the party with sponsorship, by providing full page adverts and editorial coverage over several weeks. Noel Leeming kindly matched the Club’s contribution to a prize table.

Seventeen teams entered the competition, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all who participated. Most of the club’s members were involved in some way – either on the day at the registration desk, scoring, running the sausage sizzle or co-ordinating logistics with the sponsors and the groundsmen; other tasks included the design of the advertising, website pages and an online newsletter to participants.

Tom Campbell, father of Michael Campbell (who won the 2005 US Open) said, “It was the most well-organised competition that I’ve ever been involved in!”

The three AED’s are located so that they serve not only members and visitors of the golf courses, but are available to the local community, in case of an emergency – supporting a wide range of people.


Website: www.poriruasundown.rotarysouthpacific.org

Lowdown

The Rotary recreational fellowships include the International Fellowship of Golfing Rotarians with the closest 'chapter' being in Australia (see http://agfr.org/ )  With so many NZ Rotarians golfing and so many Rotary clubs holding golfing events why is there not a NZ 'Chapter"??

For more about Rotary Fellowships go to: HERE

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Waterwheel joins Rotary, Youth and the Community

The coming together of the Rotary Club of Otumoetai, a senior student at Otumoetai College, and Tauranga’s Te Puna Quarry Park Society, has seen the recent installation of a large water wheel in the shape of the Rotary emblem set in the parks pool area.
The wheel on its journey to the pool. Rotary members actively supported
the project with providing the materials, building the base for the wheel,
 funding the project, and installing it at the park.

Te Puna Quarry Park is a community development in the environmental arts. Special features in the park include a collection of outdoor art works by local and regional artists.

This recent addition of the water wheel adds to the experience of strolling through this much loved park sometimes described as a magical place.

But more than that, what started as an idea when Rotary members were carrying out maintenance at the park, developed into an opportunity for a senior student to design and build the water wheel as part of his NCEA studies (National Certificate of Educational Achievement).
Otumoetai College student Craig Webber

This has been a success story for student Craig Webber. He enjoyed the project because it was something different, and he achieved an Excellence grade for his work.

Craig’s year long assignment delivered more learning than design and construction. The size of the project presented its own challenges, and he often set up in the classroom during lunchtimes to avoid losing too much of his construction time. The project has also been a lesson in managing time efficiently he said.


Based on a photograph of the Rotary Wheel, Craig completed the concept design and working drawings before building a 3D model. With this work complete, he pressed on with the preparatory work and finally the assembly of the wheel itself.
 



Club members left to right. Bryan Rosoman, Chas Kerr,
Roger Mark, Norm Bruning, Campbell Des Forges, Jack Barlow.

By Nola Ardern






TURNING ENQUIRIES INTO NEW MEMBERS

What happens to 0800 4 ROTARY or Rotary website membership enquiries?
In New Zealand, the 0800 4 ROTARY free phone number is used to centrally receive enquiries about Rotary, and this phone number is extensively used in all NZ Rotary promotion activity. PDG Rob Crabtree refers enquiries to the relevant Rotary districts throughout NZ whether they concern projects, Rotary programmes, general information about Rotary, Rotary contacts or the possibility of membership. 
 
Membership enquiries for Auckland clubs in District 9920 are sent to a knowledgeable central Rotarian, PDG Beryl Robinson, to ensure that these enquiries are handled in a manner most likely to convert them into new members. This also includes emails received via the Rotary NZ and Pacific Islands website www.rotarysouthpacific.org and the Rotary International website www.rotary.org.

Beryl promptly speaks to the enquirers to let them know about Rotary, find out a bit about them including their expectations and circumstance, so they can be referred to a club or clubs best suited to them. She then provides the enquirer with the contact details for the Rotary club, and the club with the enquirer’s contact information and background (which is a two way contact capability), plus asks both to keep her informed as to the outcome. The idea is that if the club does not respond properly (which sometimes happens!) or it is not suitable for a variety of reasons, then the enquirer can ask again, so that all is not lost.

Most of these referrals get turned into new members, and this more centralised approach to handling enquiries is resulting in a higher conversion to members that the earlier direct referral to clubs on receipt of the initial call or email. Sometimes (about 10%) the enquirer is not as motivated as they initially seem. There have been several instances of multiple emails, phone calls with messages left and texts as follow up before eventually reluctantly letting the enquiry process lapse if the enquirer does not respond to any means of communication and it can only be hoped they later go onto serve the community in some way. It is important to note that Beryl's role is the start of the process, and success is still dependent on Rotary Presidents and clubs performing their role with excellence to turn these enquiries into members.


- Submitted by: District 9920 PR Committee

Monday 8 April 2013

Internet versus Intranet


 
By Ellissa Nolan

Digital Production and Marketing

Rotary Down Under

 

When searching online Rotary content, I constantly read about the great emphasis placed on membership development and recruitment. I am aware that this kind of public communication could be interpreted as brand desperation, and quite off-putting to potential new members, business partners and sponsors.

Essentially, non-Rotarian online audiences may ask, “Why would I want to join a brand that appears to be dying of members?”  When in all truth, Rotary is not dying, it just has not been growing.

From my perspective, the incredible contribution of 1.2 million people volunteering their time and energy provides the opportunity to tell 1.2 million vibrant stories on the many significant ways Rotary is contributing to local, national and global communities.

For a good story, it doesn’t matter if these people are young, old or in the middle, just that they are contributing in whatever ways they can, to make a positive impact towards the advancement and survival of humans across the globe.

On the other hand, when I read of membership development strategies, in public spaces, I feel disheartened to join the spirit of the Rotary cause. It could be perceived that I would just be meeting a target in terms of increasing club numbers, rather than being appreciated for the personal value I would or could bring to the organisation working on specific humanitarian projects.

So, when thinking about Rotary’s online brand, I believe collectively we could reflect on how much information is too much for the general public’s consumption? Are we writing online for ease of information dissemination for club members, or are we actually writing to attract potential new members, sponsors and industry partners? If it’s the former, it would be best placed on an intranet (with member log-in); if it’s for the latter, then the internet is a perfect public platform.

So how do people attract people on the internet?

·         Good quality news stories sharing personal journey’s and insights

·         Profiling inspiring people working on and delivering successful projects

·         Profiling people and sharing the story on why they joined Rotary

·         Including quotes from the people or communities who have been helped

·         Including testimonials and good quality photographs of people who have been helped

·         Uploading good quality interesting images of who received the assistance supported with information on how the fundraising contributions were allocated

·         Tweeting, tagging and sharing content for all to become visible and viral online: For example:  #aid, #fundraising, #charity, #socialgood, #humanitarian @rotary, #[localarea] #[communityname]

·         Follow RDU on Facebook and Twitter so we can follow you and share your stories among our networks too.

As a content creator, I believe it is a joy to share with the world the positive vibrancy and diversity of Rotary’s members and club achievements through individual stories. However, I can also see more opportunities to position the Rotary brand as the leader in the successful design and delivery of sustainable humanitarian projects, which have significant impact at national and international levels. The care is to not make all the good stories get undermined by publicly fretting over membership development, in front of the very audiences we are trying to appeal to. 

Additional

The above is on page 27 of the April issue of Rotary Down Under magazine, read on-line at www.rotarydownunder.org

Click Here  for information about the RDU Web Hosting Service

Click Here  for information about the Regional Membership Plan and membership development resources

 

Sunday 7 April 2013

One case of polio anywhere is a threat everywhere

“One case of polio anywhere is a threat everywhere” emphasised d’Arcy Lunn, Global Poverty Project advisor and ambassador for the End of Polio Campaign, in a dynamic and thought-provoking speech on March 19 at The Rotary Club of Plimmerton in Wellington, New Zealand.

Polio is our common enemy. It usually affects children under the age of five.

223 cases of polio were reported in 2012, only a little more than one-third of the 650 cases reported in 2011. So far this year only 16 cases have been reported compared with 36 cases for the same time last year. In more good news, India marked its second year without polio on January 13, 2013.

The annual incidence of polio has decreased more than 99% since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988 when about 350,000 children were infected each year in 125 endemic countries. The wild polio virus is now endemic in only three countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. Yet, in 2010 we saw the resurgence of polio in six countries, many that had been polio-free for long periods of time. If polio exists anywhere in the world it is a threat to everyone, everywhere. Containment of polio is not an option. Eradication is the only solution.

Without a commitment from the global community to immunize every last child, this debilitating disease could start to spread again with a vengeance. All it takes is two drops of vaccine.

Plus financial support. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently donated US$100 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative through his charitable foundation. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed more than US$1.5 billion to fight polio and, in the past three decades, Rotarians around the world have contributed more than US$1.2 billion to end this scourge. Since the initiative began in 1988, 2.5 billion children around the world have been immunised.

Each one of us can help. We can help by encouraging all the parents we know to immunise their child. And we can donate to Rotary’s PolioPlus programme. Go to http://www.endpolio.org/


Submitted by:  Wendy Betteridge, Rotary Club of Plimmerton www.plimmerton.rotarysouthpacific.org

The Pillow Fight was immense fun and great publicity for Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC)

The 'Pillow Fight' was a huge success in terms of the publicity for Rotary and ROMAC.

As a first time event in Auckland, the 'Pillow Fight' was a total success in almost every possible aspect, from the planning and organisation, the team building (3 Rotaracters, 2 ROMAC Committee members and a marketing friend of one of them), the enjoyment of the participants and the positive feedback from all quarters.


 

Everyone went home happy and the stage has been set to make this an annual event. In fact, with the resources developed this year, the ROMAC organisers believe they can run next year's event at almost no cost!

It established a platform established for this to be an annual Pupuke Rotaract event to raise funds for ROMAC and promote ROMAC, Rotary and Rotaract. They will be looking to stage this elsewhere in NZ, with local Rotary and Rotaract Clubs to run it from the template developed.

So Kiwi Rotarians - pencil in Sat 5th April 2014.
 
Additional Information:

ROMAC is a humanitarian program that provides urgent, life changing medical treatment to children who need it the most. We have changed the lives of more than 300 children from 20 countries, since 1988.
www.romac.org.nz

Also for hints on doing good publicity in Rotary go to http://public-image-action.blogspot.co.nz/
 
 

Wednesday 3 April 2013

9940’s ‘Gold Star’ initiative helps fund international projects


To encourage funding of international projects by Rotary Clubs, District 9940 has introduced a ‘Gold Star’ programme.
 
Put simply, any club or group of clubs that contributes $NZ1000 to an international project is recognized within the District as a Gold Star club.

As Sandra Bartlam of the Rotary Club of Hutt Valley explains, “many clubs wished to be involved in International Service but did not have the resources to take on a big project. Other clubs had projects in place and were continuing to support them. So the Gold Star concept was planned to allow clubs to have input and flexibility in a project.”

·         A club can contribute any amount of funds or items to the project

·         The club with all others in their cluster can contribute up to a thousand dollars and become a Gold Star Cluster, This will mean 5 clubs in a cluster will contribute $200 each and be part of the project

·         Or a club can become an individual contributor of $1,000.00 and be a Gold Star Club.
Rotary Clubs that have already achieved Gold Star status include Harbour City, Hutt City, Hutt Valley, Karori, Petone and Wellington

Source:  RNZWCS Ltd Newsletter, April 2013

Kerikeri Rotary Club makes a difference at Viseisei Sai Health Centre

Thanks to the efforts of seven Rotary clubs and the Rotary Foundation, a $NZ24,000 solar power system will now generate electricity for the Viseisei Sai Health Centre Trust in Viseisei Village, Lautoka, Fiji. The Medical Centre is located at a Rotahome village between Nadi and Lautoka. It is a registered charitable trust and aims to give free health care to the 15000 people in the surrounding area.

The project commenced when the Rotary Club of Kerikeri chose Viseisei Medical Centre to assist with medical supplies. “By the time we got our act together they had received funding from another source and the idea of the solar power electricity was proposed” said current President Vicki Douglas. This proposal then evolved into a matching grant project involving seven clubs and taking three years to complete.

Led by the Kerikeri club, contributions were made by the Rotary Clubs of Norfolk Island, Bay of Islands, Kaikohe, Kaitaia, Waipapa and Lautoka, with a matching grant from the Rotary Foundation.

All the work was carried out at a local level, using Clay Engineering Ltd in Suva as the contractor. The system is a 4.2KW Grid Connect System The installation of the solar panels was completed in November 2012. “We were concerned when the cyclone went through Fiji, but thankfully a few fallen trees was the only damage to the immediate area and the building and solar units were unharmed. However, commissioning of the project was delayed because the Fiji Electricity Board was busy restoring power to the 30% of people who were affected by the cyclone” said Vicki.

Kerikeri Rotarian Mahmood Khan visited Fiji throughout the project’s development. Other key members were Past President John Toms and Past Assistant Governor Keith Day. “Without their tenacity, and that of our club Treasurer Jenny James, this project would have fallen flat” said Vicki.
Vicki concluded “Despite a number of funding hiccups we have learnt a great deal from this project and look forward to being involved in other international projects. That is what I love about Rotary – the ability to make a difference not only in the local community but further afield.”

Source:  RNZWCS Ltd Newsletter, April 2013. 

Tuesday 2 April 2013

Recent research by Cure Kids

Letter from Rosemary Such of Cure Kids.
 
"As you know,more than any partner, Rotary plays a pivotal role in our ability to fund vital medical research. If you didn't see Campbell Live on TV last night I thought I'd share the story that appeared, showcasing one of our most recent research projects. The viability of growing full–thickness synthetic skin for burn injuries is one of five studies we have funded under our Granting Round, approved late last year.
We have also had media attention around other Granting Round projects. Links on childhood obesity can be viewed here. 
We'd love you to share these stories with Rotary In New Zealand - thank you again for helping to cure kids, we couldn't do what we do without you. 

Rosemary"

I help passionate people
raise money to cure kids
Rosemary Such Fundraising & Events Manager
T: 09 370 0283 M: 027 410 0735 curekids.org.nz