This Weeks Meeting - 20 April

 

This was a special meeting to celebrate our Paul Harris Fellows.

We conferred an Honorary Membership on Past President Marsden Bell.

We awarded our Vocational Award for the Best All-Round Nurse at Auckland Hospital, the Trophy of Tradition, to Adele McMahon, who is a Clinical Nurse Specialist with Neuro Oncology.

This awarded was made possible with the very generous assistance we received by way of a contribution grant from the Chenery Trust,

Our speaker Mark Powell, the CEO of the Warehouse Group gave a wonderful speech to the point one wag cautioned members not to run to call their stockbrokers.

We then conferred Paul Harris Fellow awards on member Ngaio Merrick and a further award (a Paul Harris Sapphire Pin award) on Past President Dave Tibby.

We honoured the amazing work being done by YesDisability and the Rotary youth programmes our Club supports and dedicated the Sergeants collection to those causes.

We had visitors from the Rotary Club of Melbourne, Waiheke and Hong Kong.

It was a very busy and happy event and for the photos and more please READ here

 

This was a special meeting to celebrate our Paul Harris Fellows (PHF) and Honorary Members.

President Craig presented the Trophy of Tradition, which is annually awarded to the best all-round nurse at Auckland City Hospital.

This year’s recipient was Adele McMahon, who is a Clinical Nurse Specialist with Neuro Oncology. Adele choose the vocation of nursing after her mother contracted cancer at a time when there was little understanding from a medical point-of-view, let alone from a patient’s point-of-view, as to what was required and she wanted to change how patients were treated – something she is extremely passionate about. Congratulations Adele!

Club member and Past President Marsden Bell was then awarded with a Life Honorary membership, for all the fantastic work he has achieved within our Club since being inducted in 1986. As well as having a strong association with the Ellerslie Flower Show, the highlight for Marsden was when he instigated an International Business and Trade Summit in 2005, when a spectacular line-up of speakers discussed the challenges for New Zealanders to do business in China. Congratulations Marsden!

 

 

 

Our speaker was Mark Powell, the CEO of the Warehouse Group, whose speech title was ‘The Warehouse Group – It’s Rise and Fall & Rise Again?’ The Warehouse started with a bang in 1983, but by 2011 was in decline due to the trend of cutting costs regardless of the negative impact these cuts were having on customer experiences and if people don’t enjoy their retail experience they don’t come back. Mark described it as like watching a train crash in slow motion. However, a complete revamp of the workings of The Warehouse lead to their Vision ‘To build a 100 year company that delivers long-term sustainable profit growth and helps Aotearoa New Zealand to flourish’. The six strategic priorities that were identified were:

  1. To keep the ‘Red Core’ strong

  2. To grow ‘Non Red’ profit to be as large as the ‘Red Shed’

  3. Be a leading digital retailer in New Zealand

  4. To source better products at better prices

  5. To be a leading NZ Retail Finance Services Company

  6. To leverage group competencies and scales

and things must be working as this is their seventeenth consecutive quarter of growth.

We exchanged banners with guest Richard Fisher, visiting from the Rotary Club of Melbourne and Greg Davenport from the Rotary Club of Waiheke.  We had a delegation of 7 from the Rotary Club of Waiheke - our thanks were extended for the fellowship from both visits.

We were then introduced to our new PHF awardees.

First Ngaio Merrick received a Paul Harris Fellow for all her great work to do with the ASB Great Debate as well as working huge hours to revamp our Monday Club meetings. 

Great speakers, slick presentations while packing more in and keeping meetings to the reduced time does not happen by accident.

Then Past President Dave Tibby received a PHF one sapphire pin for all his great work behind the scenes.

President Craig acknowledged Dave's personal support and the support he has provided to so many new Presidents each year.

A reluctant awardee (as can be seen from Dave's expression) Dave's commitment to service above self continues.

Finally, Sergeant Matt Kemp provided a range of levies - everyone gets a bargain, school holidays, NZ Super increase, planned holidays and birthday taxes to boost our Sergeant’s fund; which this week will be allocated to YesDisability and our Club’s Youth programmes.