DG NEVILLE ASKS US TO SERVE HUMANITY

 
 
It was great to have our District Governor Neville John as our guest speaker at a recent meeting. He is pictured here on the right with club President Rob Fava.
 
Neville started his address by referring to Rotary's founder, Paul Harris, who said that serving humanity is the most worthwhile thing that any of us can do with our lives.
 
It was this simple, but strong, message that prompted the new Rotary International President, John Germ, to develop the Rotary theme for 2016-17 "Rotary Serving Humanity".
 
Neville has used this theme to deliver his own message - "Serving humanity is the opportunity to help others by doing what we can, when we can in whatever time we have. And you don't need a lot of time - just the right heart".
 
 
He outlined some of his plans for the year:
  1. Clubs should be stronger on July 1, 2017 than they were on July 1, 2016. To achieve this, they need to work together. They also need to be vibrant and active. Members need to be engaged, working on interesting projects and proudly promoting what they have done. If we achieve this objective, then new members will come and existing members will stay.
  2. District will run four Rotary showcase events to show communities, in regional and metropolitan areas, what we do.
  3. Clubs should embrace the challenge to recruit one member per month.
  4. Club stories and projects should be submitted for publication in local papers and beyond.
  5. We should consider establishing a Rotaract, Interact or Earlyact club to engage the youth in our community. This could be done a joint effort with other clubs in the cluster.
  6. We should build strong partnerships with other stakeholders in the community.
  7. We should have FUN.
Some of the key events for the year include:
  1. A celebration of the Rotary Foundation Centennial. Recognition of this major event is planned throughout the year.
  2. Australian Rotary Health Hat Day on 7th October. Maybe this could be incorporated as part of Grand Final week.
  3. End Polio Day on 24th October. The theme will be "Paint the Pinky Purple". The eradication of polio around the world is nearly there but we need to finish the job.
  4. Rotary's 112th birthday on 23rd February.
  5. Sending another Vocational Training Team to Cambodia.
  6. District Conference in Shepparton - 30 March - 1st April.
President Rob thanked Neville and Rebecca for visiting our club.
 
Click here to see some photos of the evening.