Once again our Bookarama sale was an overwhelming success with thosands of dollars raised for local charities.

As the organiser Colin Garrett said “The response was great and we really appreciate all the people that generously donated the books and other items that made it such a success.”

The best part of all was that like all good Rotary projects everyone had a lot of fun doing it.

One of our longest and most rewarding projects was the support the Club provided for Olive Brown who was a quadriplegic patient at St John of God Hospital. Every fortnight from 1980 until just before her death in 2011  rostered members of the Club provided transport for her to Crocksford’s Bridge Club and played her cards for her under her instructions, to allow her the opportunity for social activity. Despite her disabilities Olive was a great achiever academically and her determination to make the best of things was truly inspirational.

For many years now the Club has looked after the planting and maintenance of native shrubs in the Mt Ada area of the Port Hills under the guidance of DOC.

In Rotary’s centennial year, the club completed the construction of a picnic area at Halswell Quarry Park.

The club’s sale of “The Captains’ Jersey” — a one-of-a-kind piece of New Zealand rugby history signed by every living All Blacks captain as at 31 October 2004 — netted significant funds to support Cholmondeley Childrens Home in Governors Bay.

Members of the club visited Fiji, where they built a Rotahome, several toilet/shower/kitchen units and other utility improvements in the Rotary Club of Lautoka’s model town, Koroipita. The dream of Peter Drysdale, Koroipita demonstrates the feasibility of building a legally-compliant, low-cost, cyclone-resistant subdivision for some of Fiji’s 82,000 homeless and most vulnerabel citizens, many of whom subsist on less than FJD$2000 per year working in the sugar cane fields.

Christchurch West Rotary To Sponsor A $2.85m Government Funded Project In Tonga

Approval has been obtained for Government funding through Rotary of a Tonga Initiative Project will utilise cheap & reliable energy and techology to assist in the education of students from high school through to post-graduate level. A pilot programme will install low cost, low frequency radio wireless communications in 5 Tongan schools to demonstrate the potential benefits available to the small populations of remote Pacific islands.

A total of $2.85m has been approved for the project conditional on the successful implementation of the $400,000 project in the 5 schools that have been selected for the pilot study.