Great to see so many smiling faces on Tuesday night!
President Alice Clothier opened the meeting and gave us a brief rundown of the Anchorage International Rotary Club in Alaska. Chartered in 1958, this looks like a very active club with some great fundraising ideas like selling Thanksgiving Bouquets with which they raised $7000.00 last year and a Memorial Scholarship Pie Auction raising $15,000.00. They are very involved in the Clare Housing Project for emergency housing, and Bags for Alaska - supporting children in emergency housing. They also have a great project called adopt a highway, helping to keep the highway areas clean and tidy - a great idea that could work here. Great work Anchorage Alaska!
Leonie Tisch introduced our guest speaker John Morely. John came to speak to us with his beautiful dog Molly, on his field of expertise, the detection and eradication of Bed Bugs - bit of a scratchy subject!
John is contracted by many providers, to use his detector dogs to sniff out infestations of bed bugs and then to use a steam process to eradicate them. Bed bugs are hard to detect, so the dogs are trained, much like the drug dogs we see at the airport.
Most of his work comes from Motels, Airlines, Buses, Campervans and such like. Once the bed bugs have been detected, the steam cleaning process is far more effective than pesticide, as the rooms can be used again within hours instead of a 48 hour stand down period for pesticide. John then encourages his clients to have things checked on a regular basis as bed bugs are hard to eradicate entirely.
A little story from last week, as I ran out of room.
During December, Leonie Tisch received an email from Bob and Sue Martin from the Rotary Club of Lakewood Washington State and formerly of Munro Rotary Club, advising that they were coming to New Zealand on a cruise and would be arriving in Tauranga on Saturday 17th December. Bob and Sue had been hosts during the time that Leonie led a group on the Group Study Exchange to that part of the world.
Leonie and Lindsay picked them up from their cruise ship and brought them to Hobbiton and did the tour with them, then took them on to Rotorua for some thermal sight seeing and then back to their cruise ship. What fantastic hosts! Bob presented Leonie with his clubs banner and she reciprocated with ours.
At our first meeting last week, Leonie presented President Alice with the banner they had given her.
Following on from this, Leonie received a beautiful email of thanks from Bob and Sue, of which I will leave you a small exert.
It was so gracious and generous of you to host us for our day in your beautiful area. Hobbiton was a highlight for us. I didn't expect it to be done with such quality.
I presented the Mata Mata Rotary flag to Lakewood Rotary President Jason Whalen last Friday. President Whalen and the membership were most happy to receive it, and send their best regards to your club and district.
We returned from our visit to New Zealand with the warmest feelings for the people of your country. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly. You live in a truly wonderful and enchanted place.
I don't know if we will ever be in New Zealand again, but I am so happy that we were able to experience as much of it as we did. By the way, you can recommend Windstar Cruises to any of your friends with complete assurance that they will have an outstanding experience.
Thank you both again so much. Our time with you will live in our memories always.
Yours
Bob and Sue Martin
