Newsletter Volume 75, No 3 (Aug 04, 2021)

Guest Speakers

Sheryl put the call out to the local recipients of the Rotary Club of Matamata Charitable Trust Grants to come in and update us on what they were doing and how the funds had helped.

Maz introduced tonight’s speakers individually (I say introduced but as there were eight she opted to let them do this themselves)

Michelle Tanner spoke first on behalf of Give Every Child a Future ($5000) They are planning on vaccinating 100k children throughout most of the Pacific Islands who have financially fallen through the normal funding gap. The total cost is around $4.5m and all NZ and Australian Rotarian clubs have been asked to support this.
Wanda Leadbetter - Rural Support ($2000) Wanda discussed the need for counselling in our rural sector, the funds donated would go towards this. Covid affected many farming families who became quite isolated; children in particular were struggling during lockdown. Retired teacher and farmer Pauline McLeod (who was meant to head overseas but due to pandemic opted to stay here) was co-opted to write and illustrate the book “Sir Port, The Positivity Dog” (nice play on “Support”) to help rural children stay positive.
Carmen Field and Aniela Gregan – Toy Library ($1000) Carmen has since stepped down as Treasurer but introduced Aniela in her place. $500 is to go towards new toys, they are trying to concentrate on sustainable i.e. quality wooden not plastic toys and the rest is to help as many families possible with their annual fee as quite a few families were struggling to meet the cost and were no longer using the facility.
Justine Marshall – Starfish ($2000) Justine elucidated on all the services that are provided and the ages of the children/young adults they deal with. Whilst Starfish are entitled to some Government funding there are always gaps and this money would go to help plug some of those.
Steven Edwards – Chamber of Commerce ($500) gave us an update on the proposed Christmas tree. $30k was required for the purchase and you would have seen the fundraising thermometer in Arawa Street tracking its progress. Steve was happy to advise this has been reached and thanked Rotary for its contribution. The Twilight Gala will be held December 3^rd and the tree will be erected the day before outside Stirling Sports, and stay up for a month.
Bevan Coulton – Scouts ($1000) whilst grateful for the money, Matamata Scouts were also thrilled for the help in painting and tidying up the exterior of their building earlier this year. They had looked at applying for Heritage building status for their 90 year old building but sadly Scouts NZ has not given their approval; the building is in dire need for further maintenance so they will have to look at other avenues. Their club is doing well and they currently have approximately 50 children.
Carol Curtis and Lil Kennedy – St John’s ($500) Carol is ardent in her passion for St John’s. They have a mix of paid staff and volunteers, and keeping morale up in these current times has been a priority so the funds were allocated towards this. Carol also elaborated on their goal in getting an afterhours defibrillator installed on their building, as whilst there were plenty available in and around town they can only be accessed during working hours. When you call 111 to report the emergency the operator will give out the code required to open the cage it is housed in. Krishna asked a very good question “why can’t others do the same, so there are more available?” This is something that will be followed up on as he has one inside his dental clinic.
Warren Feek – Fire Brigade ($1500) Leaving the best to last (his words not mine) Warren highlighted the ongoing issues with lack of funding, needing more volunteers, and having to fill in more frequently for the ambulances. Like so many public services they are dependent on volunteers and currently they have eight sets of wet weather gear for amongst 24 firefighters so they were grateful to receive some extra cash to purchase more!

There were also two other non-local recipients St Jude’s school from Tanzania ($750) and Shelter Box ($1500). But I think we can understand them not being here in this instance!

Jane thanked our guest speakers for their time and dedication; tonight was certainly an eye opener for many and has given the Club much to think about going forward with future fundraising support options.

Our 2021-22 Board of Directors