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PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2017-18

Gary Poidevin

Thank you to all the members of the Rotary Club of Corowa for giving me the opportunity to serve as your President for the second time in just a few years.

As stated when I took on the job, I have tried not to introduce any new projects this year as we already had enough on our plate for the time being. However, I did say that we would try to do our current projects better and enjoy our time while doing so. So, congratulations are due to each member as we have achieved this in 2017/18. The hours of service that our Club has put into the community over the last twelve months has been appreciated by one and all.

It has been great to see all our members participating in the monthly markets. They have become a great social gathering for our members and - as we know - the monthly markets culminate in the Federation Festival Weekend.

The Federation Festival Weekend once again was a huge success. With every member participating in whatever way they could and whenever they could, the achieved result was a top community festival. This weekend is the largest fundraising effort by our Club each year and once again the B& S Ball topped all expectation.

The Club has had another wonderful year with Youth Exchange. Vera Toppara joined us in July 2017 from Finland (and she is having a ball). Sarah Hughes returned from France in January 2018 and Brydee Lavis went on exchange to Finland in January 2018. Youth Exchange is a lot to take on by a Club. All our members and their families who participated must be congratulated for the effort they put in to making these life changing experiences so memorable for these students. Our congratulations go Meredith Miegel for being asked to join the District Youth Exchange Committee.

This year’s Fred Taylor Scholarship was awarded to Caitlyn Moore. Congratulations go to Caitlyn as we wish her good luck with her future education.

It was a great privilege to be the President of our Club when we chartered a new Probus Club in Corowa / Wahgunyah. This Club has proved to be a huge success in its Charter Year.

It has also been a great year for inducting new members into our Club – 4 in total. Welcome to Bill, Ayon, Jeff and Deb.

Our major ongoing project - “The Whitehead Street Wetlands” - has been progressing quite well. Rotarian Meredith Miegel is looking after the program. Many thanks must go to Meredith for her continued support in working with various groups from the Corowa community on the project.

I also wish to acknowledge the amount of work that Meredith has done above and beyond the call of duty. She has taken all the things out of my head in connection with the B&S Ball and placed them into the computer so that the Club has a record for the future.

I wish to thank John Law for his big part in running the monthly markets, to thank Neil Davis for being a perfect Secretary (thanks Wendy) and to all the other Board members for being part of my team. Yes, it is a team effort.

There is a lot more that I could report on, but I will leave that to the other Board members’ reports.

To sign off from my year, I want to remind all members that the B&S Ball is the jewel in our crown as far as fundraising goes. It is something that we must try to keep going as long as possible. It is money into our community fund from outside giving.

Thanks to all our supporters.

Gary Poidevin

OAM

President

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