President Katrina Gibbons - Presidential Address

President Katrina opened the meeting and welcomed all members.

In her interesting Rotary information, she highlighted a recently announced, record breaking Rotary Foundation Global Grant of 1.125 million dollars that has been approved for Mercy Ships to fund a brand new state of the art CT scanner and other vital equipment on board their new ship “Global Mercy”.  The money will provide six operating theatres, three isolation rooms, 147 ward beds, six post-operative recovery beds and four intensive care beds. In addition, it will also provide training and education for local healthcare workers.  31 Rotary Districts and 341 clubs in UK, and throughout the world, were involved in securing this Grant.

President Katrina gave her Presidential Address and here it is.

Fellow Rotarians,

Looking at the past -

I first came across Rotary in 1978 with an invite to join Rotaract in Bellshill which I did 42 years ago. The meetings were held at the Derby Inn in Mossend where I eventually became the Convenor of the Community Committee.

The two main activities I remember then were;

Fitting loft insulation, for free, for elderly folks in the community. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm was greater than the skill or experience and the first time out one of the guys fell through the loft floor that they were insulating, onto the old couples bed. Fortunately there was no-one in the bed at the time.

Another project which was longer term was around 1979 which was to help settle some Vietnamese families into the community, who came over as Boat People. I did support for one family who settled in Blackwoods Crs., Mossend, a mum and children. Language was a barrier of course but we got on fine, I worked with a Social Worker and we helped get food, furniture, clothes etc.

Local people helped also when they seen the mum out trying to dig the front garden with a kitchen spoon. The garden tools was left at the door and some people even knocked the door and handed in plants for the garden. I particularly remember the children having the biggest smiles!

I still think the term used for Rotaract as “Rotary in Action” was exactly my experience of those times. However, I recently read in the Rotary magazine a letter which called for a change to this, since we are now, quite rightly referring to Rotarians as “People of Action” and the fact that the upper age limit has now been removed for Rotaractors, and suggesting that Rotaracters should be called “Young Rotarians”. Certainly that is what I have in mind in initiating a local Rotaract Club and, as this letter suggested, it would help with a more seamless transition into Rotary.

I joined Rotary in March 2009 shortly after I was invited to talk about the refurbishment of a building in Hamilton that I was working on. A couple of years later, as part of my Rotary journey, I became Convenor of the Community & Vocational Committee. I am sure most members remember our Ceilidhs in St. Brides Hall in Motherwell and what good fun we had while doing excellent fundraising!

The committee also developed and run The Furniture for Families Project which filled a gap in services in our communities. It was hard work but also good fun and obviously now the project has been re-designed to meet current needs and ways of working.

Also a big part of my journey was being a Mentor for five years at RYLA – the Rotary Youth Leadership Award. The most enjoyable, inspirational, exhausting week of the year and also the most stressful, I have to say, in the last two years as Lead Mentor for the girls week.

Some additional excitement was added the year we had one of our girls rescued off of Ben Lowers by helicopter and taken to hospital and the following year I had to follow a blue light ambulance which had one of our girls in a neck brace – a long and hectic, nail biting forty-minute drive to the hospital. Thankfully both girls were well in the end but it kind of fray’s your nerves! So I think it was good preparation for moving to the top table and eventually becoming President.

However, when I first joined Rotary I never dreamt of becoming President.  I came to speak about developing The Voluntary Sector Support Centre. The charity I worked for as Chief Executive, The Council for Voluntary Service, set up a multi-sector support package for the building and its services for the voluntary sector.

I am telling you this because despite me working in the charity sector for over 20 years at different levels and also having worked in the private and statutory sectors AND having been a Rotaracter - I was a bit in awe of Rotary. I was very impressed with Rotary and all that it achieved AND I am still impressed eleven years later with all that this pro-active global organisation achieves and what individual clubs and individual members achieve. Rotary is an exceptional vehicle to harness and focus our ideas, our energy, our experience and skills to do good.

It enables us and we in turn enable it.

Looking at the present -

Our Club is just about to celebrate 90 years in existence, 90 years of service, of doing good in our own communities and internationally. I think it should be a fabulous celebration and I think we should tell every-one about all of our achievements over those years.

Rotary is truly a remarkable business and community network built on pro-active relationships, sustainable because of its structure and on-going succession planning – our own Club with 90 years of service before self and Rotary itself with 115 years, now in most countries around the world.

As Rotarians we are welcome at any Rotary Club, as many of you know, attending clubs in different countries, on cruises and up and down the UK, always made welcome. -- As a female Rotarian I could add a wee caveat here for the very odd occasion or even odder club where as a female I did not feel entirely welcome or when I have been presumed “ a Rotarian wife!” and have been asked “ And are you a member of Inner Wheel dear?”, however I digress!

Our Founder Paul Harris stated, “Whatever Rotary may mean to us, to the world it will be known by the results it achieves”. That is still true today – maybe even more so. It would be interesting to be able to poll people in our communities about the recent Rotary achievement, our biggest and longest running international project - End Polio Now – the fact that Africa is now certified polio free.

·         Would they know what that means?

·         Would they know that Rotary did that?

·         Would they have contributed any money to it?

·         In fact, would they know what the Motherwell & Wishaw Rotary Club is and what it does locally?

·         And if not why not?

I know the difficulties and so do you, but we need to get even better at getting the word of our achievements out there. As a club we do this successfully with the articles we have in the local newspaper when we are meeting face to face and even now via the club Facebook page and a website, just look back at the stir caused by the Santa Sleigh tracker last year! So obviously I am thinking - can we do more of that “causing a stir” about the things we do, the things we achieve?

Looking to the future - we have progressed as a club and as individuals by successfully using zoom for our meetings, bringing us up to date in our use of technology. We need to use this to our advantage, reaching out further geographically but also I would suggest further within our own communities also. Zoom enable us and others – it enables us to invite individuals who cannot make it physical meetings, for whatever reason; isolation, disability, caring, financial constraints. We need to find new ways to do this and this is our opportunity.

After all our theme for this Rotary year is “Rotary Opens Opportunities” and with that I think, as a club, it is time we look at additional types of membership. We are planning for corporate memberships to be sure and perhaps we can expand, in the current economic climate, to also offer junior memberships to young professionals, family memberships and different ways members can pay their dues.

Linked to this we know more people are volunteering in the community during Covid and a headline I read the other day stuck with me. It was the heading for the Rotary Magazine Editorial for June/July which said “Where will Rotary be post – Covid 19?”

It brings our attention to these “Covid Volunteers” – for want of a better name – who are volunteers for perhaps the first time and the piece calls to us to show them “the value of Rotary in providing a better future for our communities”. I think we need to make the best of this for our membership and for our communities so that these volunteers are not lost.

In practical terms also at the moment I am thinking of the new Rotary District Covid Response Project which will grant up to four tablets for each club that applies, the details are just out and it could be the opportunity we are looking for. We could partner with our local Carers, disability or Dementia organisations and gift a tablet to an organisation in each of our communities; Motherwell, Wishaw, Bellshill and Larkhall. Plus, obviously, get some publicity for the Club while we are doing it.  I have talked previously at our assembly about Rotary being both reactive and pro-active and this Covid Response Project is one such time.

During these times situations change quickly and we already have a lot going on as a club;

Furniture for Families, Lend with Care, our youth and membership work, the Newsletter in planning and the Club Citation. Also our fundraising with the Numbers Club, Bonus Ball, the Pigeon Derby, plus the Christmas or as it may be the Spring Market. And always our Members are there, generous to a fault. We have much to be proud of ---

I think we have quite a lot going on and quite a lot in planning. We certainly have not let Covid restrictions stop us from meeting, continuing our fundraising or our planning. But we may have room for a little more planning. The new Rotary focus of environment would be one to think about now before the funding applications come out. We could be ahead of the crowd there, just a thought, a project for the future.

So to sum up - I have enjoyed my Rotary journey so far, I am enjoying it now as President and I plan to enjoy it in the future with all of the diverse and exciting things Rotary has in store for us. Obviously a huge part of my Rotary journey and my enjoyment is this Club and you the members. Not just generous in financial terms, as I mentioned, but also generous in spirit, in community and in support.

So in that spirit let’s look to the future – thank you.

The vote of thanks was proposed by Immediate Past President Andrew Murray who thanked Katrina for a very enjoyable presentation and urged members to support her in her plans for the coming year.

Willie Talbot reported that the Bonus Ball winner was Peter McCrossan.

Paul Begley reported that the fourth Pigeon Derby, from Whitley Bay to Coalburn, had taken place last Saturday. Results: 1^st Des Donnelly (10pts), 2^nd Hugh Graham (8pts), 3^rd D McLeod (6pts), 4^th James Gibbons (4pts), 5^th Katrina Gibbons (2pts), 6^th Callan Dick (1pt), booby Bill McCallum (-2pts). A detailed report will be sent, from Paul, to all members.  Next week will be the 5^th and final race.