President's report 2015-16

President’s Report – 2015 -2016  Jill Hamilton

 

It has been a privilege and honour to serve as President for the past year, I would like to thank everyone for the support they have shown over the past year. Directors of each Avenue of Service have given time and effort to pursue the activities associated with their role, particularly with reference to the Youth activities within the Rotary framework.

 

I wish to thank all members of our club for their support, but in particular, Robin Hearder who has written the minutes up from our very energetic Board Meetings, and offered sane and sensible advice. Paul Harris for having made sense of the finance and all its vagaries, and David Mylan, who has helped promote and further the membership and interests of the club as well as being my second right-hand man.  The first, of course being Peter, my husband, who has been supportive and encouraging all year.

 

Some of our members belong to the Recreational Vehicle Rotary Fellowship, as well as those who love travelling, those who have family commitments, and those who serve on District Committees like District Governor Gina Growden, (2015-16), David Mylan, and Lyn Davies. Hence it is no surprise that each week sometimes a third of our members are away. I would like to thank the Function Management Team at Breakers Country Club, Amanda and Kate, Duty Managers Chris and John and our Maître D, Kevin,  and the catering staff of the Club, for their excellent and ongoing support.  We are truly grateful to have such a friendly and helpful team to work with.  Great speakers sourced by Robin and Gina, have enhanced our meetings and educated us in many ways. Our meetings this year have also taken place at a camping site, a gliding site, at other Rotary clubs, and the historic Avoca Beach Picture Theatre. We helped with the donation programme run by Ray White Estates, with their Tree of Joy, presents being sent to the Smith Family, and allocated to families on the Coast.

 

 

 

A very successful Rotary Information evening was held in March, when members welcomed people interested in knowing more about Rotary. This resulted in two new members,  who are enjoying their first foray into the Rotary world. In addition, we welcomed a member who transferred from Galston Rotary on moving to Terrigal.

 

We continued our membership of the Central Coast International Women’s Day Committee, with PP Lyn Davies as  their Secretary, and contributed to the Dinner in August, as well as the Expo in March.

 

Perhaps the most significant event of the year so far, was at the beginning, when in August we gifted the Terrigal Rotary Hall to the Community under Gosford Council ownership and management.  This was the culmination of many months of planning and negotiating, and thanks in particular, go to David Mylan, Paul Harris and Robin Hearder for their work with Gosford Council.  With our responsibility for the Hall being over, we have also lost our revenue stream, such as it was, also of course we have also lost the expenses incurred with continual use, and our thoughts as a club have turned to other avenues of fundraising.

 

A Pride of Workmanship was held in October. This was well represented by local workers and we were pleased to give six awards.  A good attendance by club members and guests made for a successful and rewarding evening. One of the highlights for our Club is that one of our members Gina Growden has this year also been District Governor.  We have had members also travel to District functions to support DG Gina, as well as join with the others in the District.  We had representatives at Canberra for District Conference in March, two District Changeover Conferences, as well as International and Foundation events.

 

We have distributed over $6000 mostly to local charities.  But, possibly our greatest achievement this year has been the outcome of a very successful Book Fair, organized by John Millhouse, and assisted by Harley Newham, from which the club raised over $7000. All members of the club in the country at the time helped, and we were grateful for the day to day help from other Rotary Clubs.  This entire amount has been donated to the Australian Hearing Health Project and will finalise the funding of a PhD student under Australian Rotary Health, to research Hearing loss and the implications for communication.  We thank PP Lyn Davies for her promotion of this project and her work towards it.

In addition to helping with local events, we have been involved with Terrigal High School, and supported teams and individuals to attend Rotary programmes. A brokered exchange between students from Terrigal High School and Coonamble High School was considered very successful by the schools, and they will continue with this project in house.

 

So a busy year comes to an end for me as President, but projects continue, and further developments will be on-going under the new Board.  I wish our new President, David Mylan, who has been an exceptional Vice-President, all the best, and know that Terrigal Rotary Club will go forward with a passion for community service and friendship.