District Conference
The conference theme of Light up a Life was demonstrated by speakers who illustrated how they "Light Up a Life" or in some cases many lives. The conference has been inspiring. There has been a lot of laughs despite covering the realities that are part of our work as Rotarians.
As always the Exchange Students ahd moving stories about their experiences.
Michele A’Court the “Female Comedian of the Decade” at the 2010 NZ Comedy Guild Awards, as MC ruled with a tough comedic hand.
Jonathan Usher, District Governor of District 9980 2014 - 2015 was not only the New Zealand District Governors Representative but chief magician for the conference. His world-class comedy magic show had us both amazed and doubled with laughter. Jonathan is another amazing Rotorian with a big day job managing six Z Service Stations in Dunedin, Palmerston and Oamaru while serving Rotary, various trusts and all the while delivering his love of magic and laughter as part of his service.
Marcus Akuhata-Brown, gave a talk about his life's work as a teacher, social worker, diplomat, international representative, delegate to multilateral meetings and now divides his time between speaking and consultancy work, land development activities in his tribal area and studies through Te Wananga o Raukawa, a tribal university.
Marcus Akuhata-Brown grew up on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand.
Marcus demonstrated not only that he is a gifted and inspiring communicator with many in the audience moved to tears. With people like Marcus providing service to our community we can as Marcus said move beyond the depressing news to focus on the only thing that matters, what can and should be changed.
John Shackleton, lead us in a thought provoking exercise on how we could 'Step Up to Superhero'.
John had us laughing but challenged us to, regardless of age, change our thinking about how we can be change agents.
PDG Ceramic (Wu-nan, Hung) Rotary Club of Hsinchu Taiwan, the Rotary International President's Representative, brought us greetings and news from the mothership! The tradition in Taiwan is to nickname members using their occupation – hence Ceramic!
An amazing Rotarian, Ceramic brought the widom of involvement through the RI world.
Rotary International Service is like Club service but on steriods and Ceramic's many awards speaks of a life committed to Rotary and international service. A humble man who continued his service by sharing with us how we each are such an important part of the bigger picture that is your Rotary.