I have had an interesting journey in the first two months of this Rotary year.

I began by attending several Club Changeovers and experiencing the uniqueness of each club in their celebration of what for many had been an interesting, changing, and challenging year. Week two brought District Changeover, several Zoom meetings and I then settled into a steady pattern programming events, projects and meetings. At the end of that week, I travelled to Nelson for the Top of the South Club Leader Seminars, little realizing the soft on-boarding was over.

Westport
The Buller Flooding of the weekend of the 17th of July presented my first challenge. PDG Gary Hopkinson agreed to undertake the role of coordinating our D9970 Flood Relief to date. There have been several communications via the Friday mailout, and the district has committed a total of $ 20,000 to the Westport Flood Relief Fund. To date a total of approximately $40,000 has been contributed which with the District commitment and further funds to come which could bring the total to $60-70K.

An application to the Rotary International Disaster Relief Fund is currently being worked on and if successful could result in a further $35-40K NZ bringing the total to almost $100K.

Following the fundraising there is much coordination required to provide and distribute the financial and practical support.

I acknowledge the input of PDG Gary Hopkinson and the Westport RC in managing this response.

Covid-19
Connecting with Clubs and members in these uncertain times. It is reassuring to learn of Clubs embracing technology to keep connected and we may well have a need for hybrid forms of connection in the months ahead.

I have met with Club Presidents and Assistant Governors on Zoom to discuss the impact on clubs and their projects.

I am rethinking how we can achieve my goal, which many clubs are working on, to join collaboratively on events and projects and how I can participate.

I am starting an informal series of social Zoom sessions open to all Rotarians in the District to meet for an hour on Fridays at 5pm. The link will go out in the Friday mailout and the District facebook page. You are welcome to join in.

Assistant Governors
All the AG’s have met with their Presidents in the new cluster groupings either F2F or by Zoom. I have attended some, where possible, and have been encouraged by the enthusiasm, collaboration, and support within the groups. The events of the Westport flooding and the subsequent support of the Nelson/Marlborough Clubs has spread the load on the previous West Coast cluster demonstrating the opportunity for support beyond the previous geographical clusters.

District Committees
This year I have introduced a number of members outside of clubs in the Christchurch area to District committees to give a geographical spread with the redistricting in mind. Two new committees have been formed. RYLA is now a District committee shadowing the Lincoln group and a new Environmental committee has been formed to promote and assist clubs in working in the new RI Area of Focus.

Zoom
Zoom technology has enabled a greater frequency of meetings. However, the increasing frequency can put greater pressure on the availability to attend these meetings.

This engagement is positive and has allowed for a wider regional makeup of the district committee membership and cluster groups. The recently purchased cameras and remote speakers have greatly improved the participation levels in these meetings albeit the current Covid 19 restrictions.

Club visits
I have indicated that one of my goals for this Rotary year is to meet with groups and clusters of Clubs together either on projects or at events while meeting with individually with Club Boards.

However, I have advised I am happy to meet with Clubs in the traditional format if they wish.

With the ongoing uncertainty of the Covid situation for the foreseeable future I am reconfiguring my Club presentations so they can be presented either face to face or by Zoom in an interactive manner.

Planting Day
The first Rotary Peace, Remembrance & Forest Park Planting Day took place on the 7th August in collaboration with the Christchurch City Council and Conservation Volunteers NZ groups in the Dallington Loop Red Zone area.

We had 9 clubs attend along with the local community and planted 2,500 small native trees in two and a half hours culminating with a BBQ. It was an excellent afternoon and other combined planting days are planned to plant the 220,000 plants assigned to this project. The trees have been supplied by the Rotary Trees Trust and is one of our R100 projects. This was our first collaborative interclub and community project and hopefully these can continue given the Covid 19 environment.

Growing Rotary
Currently there are some clubs in the district facing challenges with critical mass. Support from the cluster groups can greatly assist these clubs

I note with interest that drilling down into the RI Membership Reports, while numbers fell by net 50 in the last Rotary year, we have to date in the first 6 weeks of this Rotary year had a net increase of 8 members. A total of 15 people have either been admitted or readmitted and we have lost 7 members. The Passport Club has actively assisted in halting the losses beyond this level.

There are a number of new Rotary club models being actively worked on in the district. These are described below:

Provisional Passport Club: PDG Deb Gimblett has held several interest meetings and has now registered the club as Provisional Club. The club already has approximately 15-16 potential members with several more having expressed interest. As well as attracting the interest of non-Rotarians of varying ages the Passport model has piqued the interest of several Rotarians who indicated they wish to meet in a different way and others who in recent years have left Rotary. The group do not meet in the traditional meal format They have already packed care packages, held a social lunch, attended the Planting Day and have had 4 meetings to determine the way forward. We zoomed them into the Nelson CLS while they were packing the care packages to introduce them to a wider Rotary group. This is an example of engaging and re-engaging with Rotary in a different way.

Young Professionals Group: As a result of the Passport Club initiative Patricia McKenzie has reactivated the Young Professionals Group.

RYLA alumni: President Sheri Gatehouse of the Lincoln RC recently organized a successful social gathering of the RYLA ALUMNI from the last 4 years. Of the 60 attendees 30 have indicated an interest in forming a Rotaract Club (s).

If you know of anyone who may be interested in any of these groups, please make contact.

Re-Districting for District 9999
Over the past twelve months a number of Rotarians from each of Districts 9970 and 9980 have been regularly meeting in teams to develop the framework for the new District as of July 2022. The teams have reported back to the Governance group overseeing the change and once reviewed the information will be presented to the Clubs.