We were delighted and privileged to have Rotary District 9980's District Governor Bruce Cowan join us for our meeting last Tuesday.
 
DG Bruce gave us an excellent address during which he bamboozled us with numbers. Well, he was an accounting teacher in a former life, after all!
  • 1.239 million Rotarians worldwide
  • 35,660 Rotary clubs, in 220 countries
  • 112 years since Rotary was established.
We were reminded that we have 31+ clubs in District 9980 and Bruce showed us that Rotarians are doing the same sorts of things in the same ways all over the world; improving communities access to clean water, improving sanitation and hygiene, providing education;  the list goes on.
DG Bruce urged us to give $150 per member per year to the Rotary Foundation to enable it to continue its important humanitarian work around the globe, in the places that most need our support and partnership.  The Rotary Foundation has the lowest administration costs of any major charitable organisation in the world, and half of the money raised is given back to local Rotary clubs to help improve the communities they live in.
 
Rotarians, in congunction with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have helped immunise 2.5 billion children with the polio vaccine. The result?  There have only been 11 reported cases this year in the only two countries that have new cases: Pakistan and Afghanistan.
 
Rotarians are being asked to keep count of the voluntary hours we give to our communities: the best estimate of voluntary service given by Rotarians nin the last Rotary year is 16 million hours -  but in truth there is probably a zero missing off that total!
 
DG Bruce’s final plea was for Rotarians to attend "BRUCE The Conference", the District 9980 Conference, in Dunedin from 4th to 6th May 2018. Check out the video below to get a feel for what's on offer ...