We celebrated a very successful year at our Changeover of Presidents and our Board at the Manningham Club on Sunday 5 July with a great lunchtime event. Our special guests included the District Governor Emma Clarke, the Mayor of Manningham Jim Grivas, the Member for Bulleen Matthew Guy, the Member for Warrandyte Nicole Werner, and Rotary Eastern Community Group Leader Trish Carr. It was also great to welcome a number of our key partners and stakeholders with 59 people attending.
Co-President Anthony expressed profound gratitude to Co-President Esther and the board. He paid a special tribute to Kathy Monley for her exceptional management of the Op Shop, the club's "fundraising engine room," as well as to the many volunteers and committee members who managed the club's administrative, catering, and sustainability efforts.
Highlighting this year’s major projects the club showed its strong commitment to youth and community welfare, highlighted by the Mayoral "Good Vibrations" All Abilities Disco, the Schools Speech Competitions, the Schools ANZAC Day service, and the sponsorship of Interact and Earlyact clubs. Other significant achievements mentioned included the Golf Day for Prostate Cancer Research, the planning for the Manningham Business Awards and Manningham Family Festival, and the strategic deployment of mental health QR codes across the community to provide vital support services. Anthony also paused to remember and honour two remarkable Rotarians lost during the year: Anthony Fernandez and Keith Woolnough, supported with brief comments from Esther.
Anthony and Esther presented Paul Harris Fellow Awards to Rod Simkiss for his sterling work on the Schools Anzac Commemoration, Leon Moore for his continuing work on LAARFS, Hon Member David Roberts our longtime Graphics Designer who provides all the collateral for our flyers, brochures, and banners for free, and Brian Negus for his dedication to Rotary, especially over the last year as Secretary supporting the Co-Presidents with many, sometimes very difficult issues to negotiate. Leon entertained us with a performance of some of his LAARFS Group songs and got us to join in – a fun segment.
We had very meaningful supportive speeches by our DG Emma and Mayor Jim, then Anthony, Esther, Brian T and Brian N conducted the changeover of Presidents. Co-President Brian N congratulated Anthony and Esther on their strong leadership over the year with the successful delivery of so many community support initiatives, and in negotiating some very challenging issues.
Brian N outline the approach that he and Brian T wanted to pursue, namely, to continue the great work done by Anthony and Esther and the Board in Connecting with our Community, Engaging with Partners, continuing to refine and implement the Strategic Plan for the Club, pursuing the ideal of Rotary of “Service above Self”, and to ensure good governance for our activities. The theme we want to amplify is Connections. We will continue and strengthen connections with and between our partners, our key stakeholders, our sponsors, our members, and importantly our community.
Brian N and Brian T also stressed that we need to consider new approaches with meeting and project arrangements to attract busy younger people to engage with our community support activities and join Rotary. We also need to reach out to members who are not already engaged in our projects to get them involved.
From many comments that we heard – a very enjoyable day was had by all.
From Co-President Brian Negus
