President Chris Dever opened the meeting and welcomed us all to 2022, with a reminder to get your booster, and stock up on food etc for when we all get it anyway.
Birthdays and Anniversaries: Amanda McFadden 1 January
Paul Belcaster (in absentia) 9 January
Simon Beaton 13 January
Bernie Taylor 15 January
Anniversaries: Neil and Dale Matson – 44 years on 7 January
Rotary Anniversaries: Brett Hobson 27 years on 1 January
Wendy Showan, Janes Nees,
Mary O’Sullivan, Bob Sutton and Dean Thompson – all 25 years
Shiv 3 years 17 January
Guests: Nathan Pettigrew - Speaker
Nathan Capper (standing in for Buddy Mikaere) introduced Nathan Pettigrew as speaker, mentioning his exploits as a kayaker/photographer, a carver and stoneworker, and working with Buddy on a kaimoana survey.
Nathan (Pettigrew) told us he had been fascinated by wildlife as a kid, and took up kayak fishing. He graduated from taking a fishing rod to taking his camera. His activities brought him to the attention of DOC, and he got put on a naughty list. Nathan was able to turn this into a positive, and now has a very rare DOC permit to follow marine mammals, particularly in Tauranga Harbour.
Much of the presentation was visual – Nathan said we can see more by googling Nathan Pettigrew kayak. Some facts:
- There are usually about 10 fur seals around Mauao;
- There were about 2.5 million fur seals around NZ, reduced to about 8000 after European settlement. Numbers are now bouncing back;
- We get leopard seals as visitors from Antarctica, sometimes long term;
- Hump Back whales migrate around NZ, and there numbers are increasing; but
- Orca are nationally critical – we have less than 150 of them and those we do have get run over by boats.
The speaker thanks was provided by Chris on behalf of James Clague.
- Mary announced the Anniversary Dinner to be held on 19 February at the Tauranga Club. Tickets $75.00 per head for a 3 course dinner. If anyone has any interesting memorabilia please talk to Mary.
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- Michele said the next meeting of the Environment Committee will be held a week early
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- Bob’s BBQ will be on 5 March (or 6 March?) –
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- Simon reported that $360 was raised for Foodbank, part of a larger total of $119,000.
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- Henry said we still need some support for marshals at the multi sport event from 6.30 am until 1 pm on 22 January.
The Raffle went to Pat
Sergeant Ron Fife
Ron had been called up at short notice. He had however prepared material for a sergeant session during December which was never used but was entirely appropriate for that date.
There are 351 days until the end of the year, and today is Dress Up Your Dog Day in the US.
Ron feels an affinity with Billy Connolly, since they were both born in Glasgow something over 70 years ago. Billy never prepares his material, he just gets up and talks. In Glasgow Ron had a mate who went out with Lulu before she was famous (noting that Lulu starred in the movie To Sir With Love, which also starred Sydney Poitier who died last week), and he had another mate who was very keen on Roy Orbison and went to one of his concerts – the supporting act was an unknown band called The Beatles.
Parting Thought(s) came from Kathy Webb: nothing is impossible – the word spells (im ) possible. Act as if what you do makes a difference, because it does.
